The Year Harry Kills Voldemort
by TygerZ
Summary: Remix to Deathly Hallows. After defecting, Draco Malfoy seeks refuge at Number Four Privet Drive. Harry, as always, is a sucker for the underdog and agrees to help. Featuring: everything you loved about Deathly Hallows, but with Draco Malfoy along for the ride. Mpreg (but I swear it's not too weird, I promise), mentions of past sexual assault, and a whole lot of Drarry.
1. The Arrival

A/N: For whatever odd reason (my brain is a strange place), this is one of the stories I always wanted to read. After a long time of just wishing someone could read my brain over the Internet and write it, I gave in and decided to just go for it myself.

I hope other people enjoy it too! Updates will come weekly. Reviews are always appreciated and inspiring. Thanks for reading!

And as always, all the respect to JK Rowling for writing Deathly Hallows, and letting me (or at least not suing me for it) take it for a spin.

Chapter One

The second midnight of July finds Harry halfway through another restless night. It's annoying, but if Harry is completely honest, not unexpected. Most of his nights this summer find Harry just like this: staring blankly at the creme colored ceiling above his brass metal bed frame, listening faintly to the snores of the Dursleys in the other rooms and wishing he could just _sleep_ through a single night without interruption. It's hot too, and he has stripped down to his boxers, laying with sticky skin wrapped in peach sheets Aunt Petunia had bought on final clearance. He's exhausted, but incapable of closing his eyes.

Surprisingly, at least to Harry, it's not always nightmares that keeps him up lately . Instead,

it's mostly a sense of growing dread in the pit of his stomach. It's the feeling that he should be doing something, anything really, to be moving forward. He spends too many nights replaying the muggle news over and over in his head, running through the headlines of the Daily Prophet, keeping a running log of the number of dead in his head. He can't shake the knowledge that Voldemort is out there murdering people, maybe people that Harry himself cares about, and he's here in Number Four Privet Drive merely biding time until his birthday. Coupled with the same scenes of Dumbledore being blasted off the Astronomy Tower by Snape replaying over and over in his dreams and the occasional joyless flash into Voldemort's mind as Harry sleeps, the restless nights pin him in desperation against his mattress, with an irrational and all-consuming need to do _anything_ that seems to paralyze him.

Harry should have known when he parted with Ron and Hermione at the train station for the last time those weeks ago, that he was walking into a month and a half of despair and absolute fucking silence, but he hadn't been thinking about it at the time. Maybe he should have prepared himself more for the summer, but there was so much that happened in a whirlwind between Dumbledore's funeral and Harry's final steps away from Hogwarts. Before he knew it he was in a car with Uncle Vernon, heading back to the one place in the world where there would be absolutely nothing to distract him from his thoughts of the impending war, of which he was no longer a student hiding away at Hogwarts but instead the Chosen One To Go Destroy All Of The Horcruxes.

The end of July is, thankfully, getting closer, although it doesn't always seem close enough. The plans of exactly when to get him had continued to change (not that he had much contact with The Order) but it was only the beginning of the month. Harry holds it together during the day, keeping mostly to himself in his room, pouring over old textbooks for anything useful, staring endlessly at newspapers for any important information (usually slipped in between the lines), and wistfully thinking of the hectic yet peaceful calm of The Burrow. Really it's just at night, when Harry has nothing to do but comes to terms with how truly alone he is, that it all becomes too much and he begins his ritual of staring at the ceiling and mumbling to himself. Bat shit crazy, he is, and he knows it.

Harry is awake then, when just after midnight that evening a cracking noise from somewhere in the backyard jerks him out of his stupor. He shoots up out of bed without even thinking. Straining his ears, Harry crosses his room to the door, his wand arm stretched out in front of him, and his other arm hurriedly pulling on his discarded t-shirt from the side of his bed. His heart is ramming in his chest, and he hopes it's just someone from The Order, here to collect him early and sneak him away before dawn. He knows there are people watching over Privet Drive. The thought that a member of the Order was outside right now, fighting to the death with some random Death Eater sent to finish Harry off sends chills down his spine.

He can't hear anything, however. Not even the squeak of the bottom stair, which almost always creaks unless you hit it just right. Harry stands there for several long minutes, tense and breathing heavily. He's finally about to shake himself, laugh off his paranoia, and turn back to bed when the door knob twists, slowly, and then opens.

A disheveled figure stands in front of him, wrapped tightly in a black cloak but hands raised in a gesture of surrender. It's only the many years of practice Harry has in being in quite terrifying situations that keeps him from shouting out, which is lucky, because the last thing he needs is the Dursleys running out of their rooms in a rage.

Harry peers at the figure, wand still raised to attack and heart pounding loud enough to hear. It definitely doesn't seem like anyone from the Order. Harry can't imagine they would send anyone he didn't recognize. He sucks in a breath to murmur the first curse that pops into his mind, when a strand of blonde hair falls across the stranger's forehead and the faint moonlight in the room casts shadows that twist around a sharp nose and mouth. Harry almost drops his wand.

"Malfoy?" Harry exclaims, hardly managing to keep to a whisper. He doesn't lower his wand, instead taking a few steps back, as if the distance will help him in this tiny bedroom. Malfoy, on the other hand, seems to take that as an invitation and enters into the room, his pace cautious but surprisingly (or maybe not, knowing Malfoy) fluid. The moonlight from Harry's window hits Malfoy's face, illuminating a long cut from Malfoy's cheek that disappears behind his ear and several large purple bruises forming around his face. The sight takes Harry off guard and he just stares.

They stand like that in silence for a long moment, a series of thoughts running through Harry's mind. On one hand, he wasn't really afraid of Malfoy. He never had been, had he? And after the scene on the tower, and the bathroom last year, well… didn't Harry at least feel for him, somewhere deep down? Somewhere that would at least allow Harry to give him a chance to explain what the flying fuck he was doing in Harry's bedroom, when hardly anyone, especially a bloody Death Eater, should be able to get in?

Death Eater. The words remind Harry of everything that seemed to be wiped out of his mind at the disheveled sight of his childhood nemesis. And worse yet, the thought that this could very well be someone pretending to be Malfoy flickers through his mind, and he clenches his wand tighter. If it wasn't for the very serious conversation he had with both Mad-Eye and Mr. Weasley before leaving the train station, reminding him that getting caught doing anything he wasn't supposed to be doing as an underage wizard could give the no longer trustable Ministry an excuse to arrest him, Harry would have already cast a body bind curse at Malfoy. Or Not Malfoy, whichever it was. His eyes move around the black cloak, trying to make out where the figure could be hiding his wand, but Harry can't make out much shape. He clears his throat and takes a deep breath.

"Malfoy," he whispers. His tone sounds more incredulous than he would have hoped. "What are you doing here?"

Malfoy shifts and some dark expression Harry can't place passes over Malfoy's face. Malfoy seems to be working up the nerve to say something, his hands still at chest height and empty, but he remains silent. Harry finds he doesn't have the patience to wait it out.

"Who was I with when we first met?" Harry says abruptly, thinking quickly. Surprise flickers in Malfoy's eyes, but he seems to catches on and Harry can almost hear his mind thinking fast.

"Hagrid. In Diagon Alley," Malfoy says, and his voice sounds much wearier than Harry expected, and drier, but carries with it the familiar drawl Harry was expecting. Harry lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"I suppose you could have told someone else that," Harry reasons out loud, but he doesn't really believe Malfoy could be Not Malfoy. There's something in Harry's gut that tells him it _is_ him, something similar to the feeling he would get when he'd see Malfoy again at school after the long summer, and one of them would throw out the first taunting words of the school year, waiting for the rise in the other. Harry lowers his wand a fraction. "But I'm going to assume that you didn't."

Malfoy nods. Harry folds his arms slowly, his fingers clenching the wood of his wand into his palm. He feels bewildered and somehow more tired than before, as the adrenaline from the intrusion begins to ebb away.

"You need to tell me what you're doing here," Harry says, and he wills his voice to stay even. He wonders if they weren't in the middle of a war, if he wasn't getting ready to hunt horcruxes, if Dumbledore hadn't just died, if he would be giving Malfoy a chance to explain himself. "Now."

Harry expects a taunt in return, a _or what, Potter_ or _shove it_ , but nothing comes. Malfoy sighs and lowers his hands, wrapping his arms around himself in what seems to be a defensive stance, as though he's not convinced that Harry isn't going to curse him. Which is fair, because Harry isn't really sure of that himself.

"I—" Draco begins, and then he stops. He presses his eyes shut for a moment before continuing. The gray irises open and stare unfocused at the floor. "I ran away from The Manor."

Silence. A loud snore rips through the wall separating Harry's room from Dudley's.

Malfoy startles ever so slightly at the noise. His eyes, however, are locked somewhere around Harry's kneecaps. It's unnerving.

"You ran away from The Manor," Harry repeats slowly. He doesn't understand. "Your house?"

"Yes, Potter, my house." Malfoy's words lack the bite that should accompany it. Harry doesn't know if he's crazy, but the lack of Malfoy's normal fight almost sets his more on edge than his unexpected appearance.

"Oh. Okay." Harry blinks. Shifts his weight onto his other leg. "Because you were sick of being there, or—"

Malfoy snorts. It's a humorless sound.

"My mother wanted me to leave. Made me leave actually," Malfoy says suddenly, quickly, and Harry has a feeling that he's resigned himself to telling his story as quickly as possible, so that he can be done with it. "Slipped me a portkey to a park a few blocks down. Vol— the Dark Lord has been staying there."

Harry's skin crawls. He knows that Malfoy is an annoying, spoiled brat, and a bully at that, but even he can't pretend that the last year or so wasn't hard on the blonde. He had watched Malfoy enough the past year, hadn't he? And after what he witnessed on the tower, Harry can't completely believe that Malfoy ever wanted that mark on his arm.

Almost independent of his brain, Harry's eyes flick to Malfoy's left arm, despite knowing it's covered by the black sleeve. If Malfoy notices, he doesn't say anything.

"My father, he's desperate to get back in the Dark Lord's good graces. He so courteously _opened our home to him_." Malfoy's voice is cold, and there's an undertone of pure hatred that laces his words about his father that Harry wasn't expecting. "As if giving him a son wasn't enough."

"You're marked—" Harry begins, but Malfoy cuts him off.

"I know you know, Potter," he snaps. "I know you were there on the tower. You always seems to know things, anyway, don't you? You knew what I was all along."

Harry's not sure what Malfoy means by that. An image of a young Malfoy with slicked back hair and a twisted frown as Harry turns down his hand of friendship pops into Harry's head, and Harry blinks quickly, trying to make it go away.

"Sure," he says finally. "I knew."

They stare at each other. Harry can't think of what the right question is to ask. Neither of them have moved, but the moonlight is beginning to shift slightly on Malfoy's face. Harry is all the sudden too aware that this is the first real conversation he's had with someone in weeks.

"Why?" Harry asks finally. "Why would you take it?"

"He would have killed them," Malfoy says. The words sound similar to the pained ones he used to explain himself to Dumbledore up on the tower. Despite better judgement, Harry believes Malfoy. He's not really sure how to process it all, however. Harry can't help but wonder if his life was different and he had never lost his parents, if he would be brave enough to risk their lives. Harry supposes wondering about something that could never happen doesn't even matter. "He would have killed my mother, first."

"But she sent you away. Doesn't that mean—"  
"I know what it'll mean, Potter. You don't have to remind me. I didn't have a choice." Malfoy's voice cracks and he turns his head towards the floor. Out of the light, Harry can only see a shadow. "She made me leave. She told me to come here. She told me Severus told her it was safe."

Rage boils in Harry's gut for the first time that night. He chokes it down, just barely.

"Where does _Snape_ bloody get off in telling people to come here?"

"My mother said he knew you would protect me," Malfoy says, and he raises his head to look straight into Harry's eyes. The grey eyes are serious. "It's not hard to guess. A Gryffindor like yourself would never turn away a wizard in need, would he?"

Harry's blood pounded in his ears, thinking of Snape mocking him, mocking Dumbledore. He curses himself for not automatically assuming this was a trap. He should have sent Hedwig out to the Order as soon as he heard a noise in the first place, instead trying to play it out himself as though he could handle it without using magic. He tries to think of a way signal to whoever is keeping guard in the front of the house.

"Snape said no one with ill intent against you could find the house, or come in," Malfoy says, speaking quickly again, as though he can hear Harry's thoughts. "I didn't even speak to him about it. I haven't spoken to him since— since that night. Just my mother has. She just wanted to protect me."

"You have the mark," Harry says, suddenly and with a twist in his stomach. He doesn't want to think about Snape or if he believes Malfoy, and he doesn't want to feel pity for him. "He'll find you."

Malfoy stares at Harry, seeming to forget to breath, but then shakes his head slowly.

"We didn't finish the ceremony. The mark is there, but— it's not complete until— until you kill someone, for the Dark Lord. He normally does it right away, but it was more of a challe— Trust me, he would have found me already, if it was."

Harry feels sick to his stomach. He turns to the bed and sits down on the edge, fighting the urge to bury his head in his hands. He doesn't take his eyes off of Malfoy, but he feels all at once his insomnia catch up to him, and _fuck_ he's tired.

"You need to tell me. Right now. What are you doing here?"

"I told you," Malfoy says, his hands twisting around the long sleeves of his cloak, "I told you, my mother—"

"Your mother let Voldemort mark you," Harry snaps. Malfoy flinches, but Harry continues, "it has to be something else. Tell me, or I'm letting whatever Order member is in the front yard that you're here, and they're definitely not going to care that Snape told you this was a safe house."

Harry can tell by the look on Malfoy's face that he isn't surprised someone is watching over Harry. He assumes it's probably obvious, and it explains why Malfoy snuck in the back, although how exactly he did is just another thing on the long list of _what the fucks_ Harry needs to find out.

But one thing at a time.

"Malfoy—"

"Something happened. Yeah," Malfoy's eyes flick all over the room, anywhere but Harry. "I'm not— I'm not trying to hide it, it's just— Merlin. It's not something I particularly want to share. Especially with you, Potter. Can you please stop _staring_ at me?"

Malfoy is a knot of nervous energy, and Harry doesn't know what's happening anymore. There's something off, something very off about Malfoy, but Harry can't place it. Not that he'd ever admit it, even under the threat of the Cruciatus, but Harry spent a lot of his last six years at Hogwarts watching the other boy, and nothing about what he's learned about him since then seems to apply to the current situation. Harry, for his part however, doesn't look away.

"He— the Dark Lord— he's messed up, Potter. You know that."

Harry gapes. "Seriously, Malfoy, just fucking get on with—"

"He tortures people." Draco blurts. Harry resists the urge to roll his eyes at the obvious statement, because there seems to be something else that Malfoy is getting at, something that Harry doesn't understand but that gives him a tight feeling in his stomach. "Just to entertain himself. And it's not always with magic, and...he doesn't do it himself. Obviously, right? Who knows if he even can."

Malfoy's face is blank, but is voice is dark and angry, with something else that sounds a lot like Malfoy's could simply burst into tears. There's a slight pink tinge to his skin that Harry can just make out through the dark. He looks away hurriedly at the window, his mind spinning, unsure of what is supposed to be obvious. When Malfoy speaks again, he's so quiet Harry almost can't hear him.

"He has his followers do it. The other Death Eaters. I've—I've seen it, heard it before. But then— the other night, he was mad, again with my father. My bloody father who blindly followed this maniac but can't _fucking_ gather up the courage to serve him well, and instead drags _me_ into the whole thing, like I _asked_ for this—"

Harry glances back over at Malfoy. He's shifting his weight back and forth, as though he wants to be pacing but is afraid to move. He folds his arms around himself. He looks small. It's so unlike any other time he's ever faced off with Malfoy. It makes Harry's head spin.

"I didn't kill Dumbledore," Malfoy says, quietly, and Harry understands, at least a part of it. The image of Lucius Malfoy throwing his son to a pit of Death Eaters, subject to whatever form of torture Malfoy can't bring himself to say, in desperate hopes to save the Malfoy name. Horrified despite himself, he whispers back,

"Snape killed Dumbledore."

Malfoy snorts, and Harry stares at his hunched figure. He's knows, without knowing how

he knows, that Malfoy isn't lying. That Malfoy was, what, _passed_ around to a bunch of Death Eaters, in his own home? Merlin.

"Like that matters, Potter. I failed. I didn't even complete my marking."

Harry tears his eyes from the window and focuses on Malfoy, who's peering at Harry through the dark.

"I don't want to tell you any of this, Potter," he says slowly, and he sounds very different from the bully Harry knew at school. Harry is suddenly reminded of a memory he'd like to forget, of a bathroom and blood and a screaming match between the two of them where Harry had not been the good guy. "But I know I have to, if you're going to help me. And I know—I know that you'll have to tell everyone in The Order, and that everyone will know, but _fuck_ … just don't say anything right now."

Harry doesn't. He thinks of the torture he sees at night, sometimes when his

dreams blend into Voldemort's consciousness, and he can see him slicing muggles over and over, he can see him turning people inside out, can see him holding muggles under the Cruciatus until they fall still, dead… images that have haunted Harry since that night in the graveyard when that cold voice spoke _kill the spare_ , the dark realities of an utter madman that no one truly knows but those closest to him—

"He lets his followers… mess with the prisoners." Malfoy's voice is soft and quiet but his words hit Harry like a curse. "You know? Touch them. Do—do things with them. Or… or with failed Death Eater sons, I guess."

Harry stops breathing. He understands in a wave of clarity, and the whole _idea_ of it makes bile rise in Harry's throat. He's not sure how to process this new information, instead he closes his eyes and rubs at his face with his hands and crosses over to his bed, sitting down heavily and succumbing to the need to hide himself as far away from Malfoy as he can manage in this tiny room, as though he can easily pretend he's alone and his schoolyard rival wasn't in his room in the middle of the night, admitting to Harry for whatever reason the darkest secret Malfoy probably had.

 _You wouldn't have ever listened to him_ , a voice in the back of Harry's head says _, he had to tell you_.

Harry supposes that's true.

"Don't pity me, Potter."

Harry's head jerks up at the sound of Malfoy's voice. The words are snapped with actual heat this time, and for the first time Malfoy sounds like the Malfoy Harry remembers. Harry shakes his head, bewildered.

"I don't pity you," he says, and he's surprised to feel that it's true. He's definitely feeling something, but pity isn't exactly it. Horror, perhaps, and nausea, and something uncomfortable Harry can't quite name. Nothing in his life could have prepared him for this, and even if someone had told him ahead of time that his former enemy would be standing in his childhood bedroom reliving what had to be the worst memories imaginable, it wouldn't have helped Harry figure out anything to say. He thinks of apologizing, but that doesn't feel right. He settles for silence, leaning back in the bed until his back hits the wall, his head tilting back to stare at the ceiling. He feels as though something has fundamentally shifted, and he feels old.

"You should get some sleep," Harry says finally, looking at Malfoy, still standing with arms wrapped tight around himself and downcast eyes. Malfoy jerks at this, and when he looks up, the hood of his cloak tilts back, revealing a shocked expression, pale skin, and more bruises than Harry initially thought. Not for the first time that night, Harry fights for control of his voice. Taking a deep breath, he sits up. His back cracks as he stands up off the bed and moves into the desk chair on the opposite wall. He jerks his chin towards the bed. "You take it."

Malfoy's watching Harry with disbelief, and for some reason, it's that expression that sparks the irritation in his gut, and the entire situation seems overwhelmingly insane to Harry.

"I'm not going to sleep. I'm not tired," Harry lies. "Seriously, Malfoy, just—you look terrible."

Another dry snort from the blonde.

"Thanks, Potter." Malfoy rises, his expression, surprisingly, determined. Harry wonders what it must cost his pride and sense of self-preservation to even be here, let alone try to sleep. Malfoy slips his cloak off, and Harry tries not to stare at the black trousers and black long sleeved shirt underneath. He wonders if the all black is a Slytherin thing or a Death Eater thing or if it's just an upper class Malfoy thing.

Malfoy pauses on his way to the bed and glances over at Harry.

"There's more," he says quickly. Harry finds himself trying to remember if Malfoy has always been a nervous rambler or if this is a completely new development. He guesses he's going to find out, at this rate.

"In the morning," he replies, too tired for more. He hasn't even processed any of this, or figured out what he's going to do with bloody Draco Malfoy in his room.

Malfoy says nothing, just stares at him, before abruptly laying down on the bed. He makes almost no noise as he lies out on top of the sheets, his head turned away from Harry.

Harry takes this moment to stare at the blonde, thinking hard. He has a couple options of course, the first and most obvious one being to throw Malfoy out as soon as possible. But, even with their history, Harry knew that was cruel. And as much as he loathed admitting it, Snape was right, Harry wouldn't be able to just throw Malfoy out, not after knowing what he knows, and especially since Malfoy didn't seem to pose much of a threat. Harry had yet to see his wand...

"Malfoy," Harry says suddenly, wincing at how loud his voice sounds in the quiet room. "Where's your wand?"

A long silence stretches out and Harry almost thinks that Malfoy has already fallen asleep on him, when the tired drawl responds faintly.

"Someone took it."

Despite everything Harry's heard tonight, this seems to be the thing that pushes him over the edge. He stares at Malfoy, incredulous.

"You don't have it? What do you—"

"You can search me in the morning, Potter," Malfoy snaps. He almost sounds normal, and Harry feels strangely grateful for it. The idea of fighting with Malfoy sounds a lot easier than whatever this strange truce is. "I'm tired."

Harry doesn't say anything, just leans back in the desk chair and keeps watching as Malfoy's breathing eventually slows, turning their conversation over and over in his mind until he reaches a decision.

Things he does know, he decides: Malfoy is unarmed (most likely), Malfoy is not really a Death Eater, Malfoy is definitely pitiable (even if Harry wouldn't admit it out loud), and there's got to be some uses the Order could find for someone who, until hours ago, had Voldemort himself living under his roof.

The list of things Harry doesn't know is much longer. It isn't until the sun is beginning to rise, turning the little bedroom into a gentle pink glow, that Harry decides how to precede.

"Whatever the _more_ is first," he mumbles to himself, his head in his hands against the desk he's sitting at. "And then I'll owl The Order."

Malfoy doesn't stir at the noise, and Harry allows himself to close his eyes, just for a moment, and rest.

Harry wakes suddenly, his neck uncomfortably tight as he removes it from the elbow he has propped up against the desk and straightens up. His back is warm, covered in golden morning sunlight that's streaming into the room. He blinks hard, the details from the night before mixing with the dream which had woken him up. He feels disoriented.

"You were having quite the dream, weren't you?" A voice drawled behind him, and it sounds so much like _Malfoy_ that Harry is both relieved and regretful for not kicking the blonde ponce out when he had the chance.

Harry rubs at his eyes before turning to Malfoy. The dream of Malfoy Manor, of Voldemort's anger, flashes behind Harry's eyes. In front of him, Malfoy is sitting up against the wall, leaning casually with his knees drawn up to his chest and elbows resting on kneecaps. He looks an irritating picture of elegance that seems impossible given the situation, and despite the twisted sheets and the ugly peach wallpaper behind him. If it wasn't for the bruising around his face that looks much more purple in the daylight, Harry would have questioned if he had imagined their conversation last night.

"Your mother is alive," Harry says, because he's never been one to beat around the bush, and does not feel at all guilty when Malfoy's jaw snaps shut. He does, however, leave out her disheveled state, figuring that as long as Voldemort didn't plan to kill her, Malfoy doesn't need to know. "It seems that Voldemort thinks you escaped on your own. And I guess it proves that you were right about the mark. He has no idea where you are, and without your wand or doing magic, he's going to have a hard time tracking you."

Malfoy stares at Harry, and Harry realizes with a jolt that it wasn't exactly common knowledge, Harry's weird connection with Voldemort. He tries to think of a way to explain, but can't. Instead he shrugs, in an attempt at nonchalance that makes Malfoy's face twist in confusion.

"Just trust— believe me," Harry says, changing his words quickly. Malfoy continues to stare at him but nods slowly. "And anyways, you're the one who needs to answer some more questions, aren't you?"

A pale blonde eyebrow rises slightly.

"Merlin, Potter. You just woke up." Malfoy's tone in incredulous, as though Harry had asked him to run a race with his legs tied together instead of just having a fucking conversation. "I'm starving and I need a wash. Don't you at least have to take a piss?"

Harry, for whatever bloody reason, blushes.

"I suppose," he says. "But it's complicated."

"Complicated," Malfoy repeats slowly, as though talking to someone half his age. Harry rolls his eyes.

"My aunt and uncle are not going to be please with you being here. We're going to have to sneak into the bathroom together." Harry does not, he tells himself, continue blush when he says this. "And there's some cake under the bed. Under the floorboard."

"There's cake in the floor?" The same slow drawl, coupled with an additional raised eyebrow. Harry sighs, irritated and feeling just as defensive as he usually does around Malfoy.

"Breakfast, right? Trust me. There's not going to be breakfast downstairs for either of us."

"I don't understand."

Harry flashes him a grin.

"Makes a nice change of pace, doesn't it Malfoy?"

Somehow, the two of them make it through all morning bathroom rituals without being seen by the Dursleys and without killing each other. Harry tells himself, as they stand too close in the tiny brightly lot bathroom, that it's no different than sharing a bathroom with four other boys for the last six years. It feels different though, because most of those six years were also spent at odds with the boy next to him, but somehow the two make it through with minimal threats and only a little blushing. Harry is somewhat pleased to notice that he wasn't the only one with flushed cheeks, and figures that's the only reason Malfoy doesn't mock him for it.

Shortly, the two of them have returned to the room, Malfoy is back on Harry's bed and Harry in the chair, each favoring a large piece of cake from Mrs. Weasley. Harry closes his eyes as he eats, savoring the buttery flavor of the strawberry frosting against his tongue.

"How are you so boney?" Malfoy remarks in between bites. "If you eat cake for every bloody breakfast?"

Harry wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. Malfoy's nose wrinkles at the gesture and Harry sends him another grin.

"Not _every_ breakfast."

"So it's true, isn't it? The stuff everyone says about your relatives?"

The grin slides off Harry's face.

"I suppose," he says, his pride keeping him from letting his eyes drop from Malfoy's. "But aren't we supposed to be talking about you?"

Malfoy's face tightens and his straight posture seems to sag slightly. He slips a little more into the person who showed up in Harry's room the night before, although his face remains impassive.

"I would have thought I told you enough personal— information to at least be able to ask some questions in return," he says finally, his voice tight and annoyingly polite.

"Well," Harry says slowly, "I'm not the Death Eater here, am I?"

For a moment, Harry forgets Malfoy doesn't have a wand and thinks he's going to curse him on the spot. But then Malfoy just sighs again and looks up at the ceiling.

"Okay. Just go for it."

"Okay," Harry says, a little unnerved by the easy cooperation, but plunges right into his mental list of questions he formed during the night. "How did you get in the house?"

"I picked the lock," Malfoy says, and he looks surprised at the question. "Some second year tried to pick Blaise's trunk last year, and I made him show me how to do it in return for not ratting him out."

"It wasn't too muggle for you?" Harry shoots back, not quite believing his ears. He has a hard time picturing Malfoy at Hogwarts admitting that a second year might know something that he didn't.

"I thought it would come in handy." Malfoy's cheeks are pink again. "And it did, didn't it?"

Harry concedes the point with a tilt of his head.

"You knew which room was mine?"

"I got lucky," Malfoy says, shaking his head. "Yours is the first door."

He pushes a hand through his blonde hair, which looks much softer when it's not slicked back.

"Okay," Harry says, unsure of how else to respond. Malfoy rolls his eyes.

"You've been up most of the night thinking about all of this, and _those_ are the questions you have?"

Harry glares at him.

"I'm working up to the bigger ones," he snaps, defensive. "I thought it'd probably be easier this way, but if you'd prefer me to ask instead how it felt to be thrown to the pit of Death Eaters by your own father, be my—"

Malfoy springs out of bed with shocking grace, standing in front of Harry. He breathes heavily and his eyes spark.

"Don't," he says, his voice low. "Don't you fucking dare."

Harry winces, and with a flash of guilt concedes the point to Malfoy. He looks up at the lean figure in front of him, this version of his rival that Harry doesn't understand anymore, and thinks that the war was destined to change a lot of things and Harry shouldn't be shocked that it could change Draco Malfoy as well. Harry avoids looking Malfoy in the eye and tells himself that he's almost an adult and he really should be past the point of wanting to goad Malfoy.

"Sorry," he says, and Malfoy's surprised look pulls at something in Harry's chest, something that makes him feel another wave of guilt. "You're right, sorry."

"Okay," Malfoy says. He sits back down on the edge of the bed, feet on the floor and back straight. Harry runs a hand through his hair.

"I'm not sure how to do this," he admits, and Malfoy snorts.

"That makes two of us, Potter. Although it does help if you at least try to think before you speak."

Harry glares at him, but there's little heat behind it. H draws in a breath, collecting his thoughts.

"You said there was more," Harry says finally, carefully. "What else?"

Malfoy's eyes are bright.

"Name it, Potter," he says. "I'd imagine I have enough information about the Dark— Vol—"

"Voldemort," Harry says firmly. "It's not going to help you to avoid saying it."

"It could," Malfoy mutters, "he's thinking of jinxing it."

"He— what?"

"Never mind," Malfoy rubs a hand absentmindedly over a large bruise on his jaw. "It's doesn't matter right now. The point is, I know a good amount of things about what _He_ was planning. Not everything, and nothing complete, but I believe it could be useful."

"Okay."

"Okay," Malfoy repeats. Harry feels as though there has to be more, but he waits Malfoy out, imaging he's working up to it, judging by the way he's chewing on his bottom lip. In the silence between them, Harry can hear Dudley turning up the TV downstairs and Aunt Petunia starting up the vacuum on the stairs. Harry's again struck with how surreal this whole thing feels.

"I'm willing to do an unbreakable vow," Malfoy says finally. "Or help The Order, whatever they need."

"Why?" Harry asks, his eyes narrowing. He figures it's one thing to flee Voldemort's torture to protect yourself, especially a Slytherin through and through like Malfoy, but another to openly switch sides in the way he's offering. Malfoy looks uncomfortable, and he twists slightly on the bed. His expression remains carefully neutral, but Harry can see the subtle signs, the further bend in the otherwise perfect posture, the tiny clench of his hands, the signs Harry was used to watching for. He wonders, somewhere in the back of his mind, if it's unhealthy, the amount he's watched Draco Malfoy. He's sure Ron and Hermione have opinions on it, most of them that he's heard, and he pushes these thoughts aside and tries to focuses on the blonde in front of him, whose skin seems to be growing paler. "Why not just ask for sanctuary?"

"I'm not just protecting myself."

Malfoy says this with an air of forced calm, and Harry decides he's done with feeling completely lost in their conversations.

"We can't help your mother," Harry says, aiming for a gentle let down but instead sounding more exasperated than anything. "Not unless she leaves the manor too, and even then. She's an adult, this is her second war, it diff—"

"Not my mother," Malfoy cuts in. "It's— Merlin, you might actually have been right Potter, we should have built up to this."

Harry just watches him. If it's anything like last night, he thinks that silence and patience might be the only way to get information out of Malfoy.

"Vol— He uses Snape as more than just a spy. He's a brilliant potions master, whatever you might say."

Harry's expressions tightens, but he lets Malfoy continue.

"He uses Snape for experimental potions. New ways to kill people, I guess, as if he needs it. But there was this idea, among his followers, this idea that… _Merlin_ , that if the wizarding line was to stay purely magical, then there would need to be a way to… we'll, have more magical children."

"Right," Harry says, but he doesn't get it. Malfoy is biting his lip again. Harry realizes that the blonde's voice loses almost all of its smug drawl when he's speaking seriously like this. He likes it a lot more than Malfoy arguing with him.

"He ordered Snape to make a potion, one that would let… men carry children."

Harry's mouth drops open. He almost laughs at the idea, but stops himself just in time. Malfoy is glaring at him.

"And it worked?" Harry asks, fighting to keep his voice even. The image of an army of male Death Eaters with swollen bellies wandering around The Manor firmly locks in Harry's mind.

"Barely," Malfoy's eyes are cold, looking just over Harry's shoulder. "They captured half-bloods and tested it— most of them died. Painfully, slowly, their bodies breaking down from the inside out."

The Death Eater image is wiped from Harry's brain and he winces.

"Most of them? What about the rest?"

"Those that lived were killed after they delivered."

"How did—"

"They cut the baby out," Malfoy looked sick just thinking about it, and Harry couldn't blame him. "And then killed them."

"They _murdered_ them?" Harry stared at Malfoy, not wanting to believe anyone could truly could be that cruel. "Didn't they want to know if they would live?"

Malfoy shrugs, with a short laugh that sounded more like a bark.

"They were half-blood children," he spits out, but Harry doesn't think his disgust is pointed at the children. "And the theory was that a pureblood would be more likely to live, and the baby would be stronger."

"The theory? It's sounds like bloody bullshit. They were just going to go with that, without even testing—" Harry breaks off, his eyes widening and compression dawning. Malfoy is glaring at him as though he's challenging him to laugh, but there's something vulnerable behind the grey eyes that doesn't quite make it to the pale face.

"Made it there finally, Potter?" He snaps, and then stands and walks to the corner furthest from Harry, not looking at him. "What an amusing joke this must be to you."

"What? No, Malfoy. _Fuck._ That's...that's fucked up."

He barely hears the snort from the corner of the room. Harry's head is spinning. He feels cold, and unsure of how to proceed. Every strategy, every plan he had thought through the previous night seemed to be thrown out. He might have been able to give up Malfoy to the hard judgement that most likely waited with The Order, but it wasn't just Malfoy anymore, was it?

"Snape gave my mother more potions. To help, with the… development over time."

Harry ran a hand through his hair. He stood up and walked over the window, briefly considering crossing the room to Malfoy and offer some sign of support. He quickly shrugs off this urge, unsure of where it came from. Although, Harry figures, you'd have to be inhuman (or at least a Death Eater it seemed) to not empathize with Malfoy at this particular moment. Harry's entire body hurts just thinking about it.

"Can you, you know, get rid of it?"

Draco spins around, and his cold eyes burn into Harry's.

"How elegant, Potter," he snaps. "No I can't _just get rid of it_. Snaps was clear that the results of trying would be… less than favorable. Besides—"

Malfoy breaks off at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs and past their door. Aunt Petunia, Harry supposes, judging by the lightness of them. She passes into her bedroom and then out again, back down the stairs. Harry's not worried about them interrupting, they mostly try to ignore the fact that he's there. He knows no one is going to check and make sure he's still breathing, that's for certain.

"Besides?" Harry presses, but Malfoy waves a hand at him and shakes his head. Harry tries for a different approach. "Whose is—"

"I don't know," Malfoy cuts in, voice rough. Harry swears under his breath. Malfoy is stubbornly not looking at him, and Harry knows how mortifying this must be for him, to come to Harry Potter of all people with this kind of secret. He can't decide if it's just self-preservation or actually extremely brave, or maybe a little bit of both. He tries to imagine what it would be like if they're positions were reversed, and although he's sure Malfoy would have just cursed him on sight, Harry knows the last thing he would want would be for Malfoy to make a big deal over the whole thing. Besides, emotionally delicate situations were never going to be Harry's strongest moments. He settles on a calm but determined response.

"Okay," he says firmly, and Malfoy's eyes snap to his. "We'll help you. the Order will. I'll make sure of it."

"And in return?" Malfoy asks, looking skeptical. Harry shakes his head.

"If anyone thinks it's necessary. I'm sure they'll give you veritaserum. I don't have any or I'd give you it now. But we're not monsters, Malfoy. We'll keep you and— we'll keep you safe. You didn't ask for this."

Malfoy's mouth twists. "No, I didn't."

"Right," Harry tries smiling at Malfoy, and he hopes it reaches his eyes. "Don't think this means you're not still an idiot though."

Malfoy stares at him for a moment, and then smiles faintly back, a surprised look in his stretching across his face. It's quickly gone, replaced by the familiar controlled expression, but for some reason the brief glimpse relaxes Harry.

He can figure this out, Harry decides. It will be okay.

Harry leaves Malfoy in the room with a firm _don't leave this room even if you're on fire_ , to which the blonde just glares up from whatever potions book of Harry's he nicked and is in the middle of reading at the tiny desk. Harry slips across the street to Mrs. Figg's, where he is bombarded by introductions to her newest cats, a heavy, thick perfume that smells like lilacs, and more floral wallpaper than he remembers. He manages to ask her if she knows who is on watch for the day before she drags out the photo albums.

"Oh," she says, looking surprised, although Harry isn't sure why. It's not like he normally comes over on social visits. "Remus Lupin, I believe."

"Perfect," Harry says, relief flooding him. "Do you— Er, do you know how I can speak to him?"

"Oh! Yes— yes, alright, one moment." She peers at him. "You're not hurt, are you Harry?"

"No. No, it's just—- important."

She stares at him, as though trying to figure him out. At a moment she shakes her head slightly and turns quicker than Harry would have expected for a woman her age.

"Alright, I'll fetch him."

Mrs. Figg disappears into the adjacent sitting room and he can hear her speaking to someone. Harry tries to peer around the corner, curious about how the Order managed to communicate, especially by the non-magic means that Mrs. Figg was probably using. He can't see around the wall, however, and it's only a short moment before she's back. He straightens up quickly.

"He'll be in any minute. Can I get you some tea?"

Harry shakes his head no. He remembers all too well the stale and disappointing things Mrs. Figg used to serve him when the Dursleys would leave him here during their family days. He sees her open her mouth as though she's about to argue with him, when he's saved by a sharp knock on the door and an almost immediate entrance of a slightly less but still disarrayed looking Remus than normal.

"Harry," he says, sounding breathless. His eyes flick up and down, as though checking for signs of damage. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Remus," Harry says quickly, holding his hands out in front of him in what he hopes is a calming gesture. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I just— I have something I need to talk to you about. It's urgent."

Lupin nods, his eyes curious. There are more lines around his eyes, Harry notices, and he wonders if this war isn't aging them all way too fast.

They sit in Mrs. Figg's sitting room. Lupin drapes his patchy brown robes over the rose patterned loveseat and leans back, watching Harry intently. Harry sits on a small pink chair across from him. He is instantly reminded of many visit to Lupin's office his third year, and he thanks anyone who's listening that it was Lupin on the Make Sure Harry Potter Doesn't Get Murdered shift today and not anyone else.

"What is it, Harry?" Lupin says, as soon as Harry is seated. Harry opens his mouth and then closes it again, unsure of where to start. He can hear Mrs. Figg bustling around the kitchen, clanging pans under a running faucet.

"This is going to sound insane," Harry says in a low voice, "but just, just wait until I explain it all, okay?"

"Okay." Lupin says slowly, his eyebrows drawn up in confusion. Harry decides to just jump into it.

"Last night Draco Malfoy showed up at the Dursleys. In the Dursleys, actually. His mother gave him a portkey to Little Whinging and he picked the lock."

Lupin stares at Harry blankly.

"That's not possible—"

Harry holds up a hand, giving Lupin an apologetic twist of his mouth.

"Sorry, Remus, I just need to get this all out." Harry takes a deep breath. He launches without preamble into Malfoy's story, how he fled The Manor and was able to sneak into the Dursleys house. He glides over the mention of Snape, still not wanting to process it himself, and figuring it probably won't help this conversation. Lupin watches him quietly, his eyes widening more as Harry continues, as he tells him about the potion brewing, about Malfoy's current affliction and how he got it, until Lupin's eyes are simply wide with horror.

"Merlin," Lupin says, pushing out a long breath. He leans back on the couch. In the other room, Mrs. Figg is singing a high pitched tune to what Harry assumes is one of her cats. "That's barbaric. Malfoy isn't even of age yet, is he?"

"Er— he just turned, I think he said." This is a lie, but Harry's not quite sure how he knows what Malfoy's birthday is and he'd rather not add to the creepy list of things Harry practically stalked Malfoy to learn.

"It's horrifying. I— I can't imagine."

"I'm not sure what to say to him," Harry admits, looking down at his hands. Around his ankles, a small tabby Harry thinks is named Tulip brushes pushes her head against his shoe. "We hated each other, since we first met, and then… I never thought I would ever be the person he came to with this, I guess. He doesn't even have a wand with him. It's— unnerving."

"It's understandable, Harry." Lupin says in the calm voice of his that always manages to relax him. "It's not something most adults would even know how to handle. I don't really know what to do here. _Draco Malfoy_. Turning against his family name, betrayed by his father...it's hard to believe." Harry looks up at these words and finds Lupin watching him carefully. "Harry, I know you might not want to hear this, but it is possible that he's not being entirely truthful."

Harry shakes his head roughly and folds his arms over his chest.

"He's telling the truth, Remus. I'm sure of it." He avoids looking at the expression on Lupin's face. "Like I said, he doesn't have a wand on him. And we can give him veritaserum, can't we? He's not going to object."

Lupin hesitates before nodding slowly and standing up. He picks up his robes and starts pushing back on. Harry stands up too, confused.

"Wait, that's it? You're fine with all of this?"

Lupin shoots Harry a strange look.

"No, Harry. I… I'm going to go get him. I'll bring him to an Order safehouse, where someone can watch over him."

For some reason, some strange reason that Harry doesn't want to think about, that he tucks away in the far corners of his mind, this idea doesn't seem right to him. A knot of anxiety tightens in Harry's stomach.

"I don't think that's the best idea," he blurts out, and again, Lupin sends him another look with the same mixture of confusion and surprise. Harry continues on, trying to make his voice sound like he's thought this through. "I think it would be best if he stayed. With me. It's got to be a lot, everyone knowing all this, right? And he has to be safer with me here than in a safe house. Voldemort can't get in the house, right? He's going to try a lot harder to search for Malfoy. I don't want anyone in the Order getting hurt, not for him."

Lupin stares at Harry for a long moment, and he's not sure if he wants to know what Lupin is thinking at the moment. Finally, however, Lupin nods his head and rubs a hand over his eyes.

"You're probably right, at least for the next weeks. It'll give us time to think of a plan. And an explanation, perhaps."

"Right," Harry says, and the pit of his stomach relaxes a little. "Ease people into it."

"I suppose, yes. But Harry," Lupin says, in the very serious tone that only he can completely achieve. "If anything, really anything, seems off to you, you need to tell us. Immediately. I know you like to do things on your own—"

"Hey," Harry cuts in, stung. "I came to you, didn't I?"

"You did," Lupin says gently. "But hours after the fact. It could have gone many other ways, Harry. I need your word that you'll let us know as soon as anything would happen." Harry looks down at his feet, annoyed with Lupin for making him feel thirteen again, like he was being scolded again for sneaking into Hogsmeade.

"And I'll make sure someone's posted at the back entrance too. I don't like that Malfoy got through undetected."

Harry simply nods. The two of them thank Mrs. Figg and hurry out before she has a chance to offer them the homemade fruitcake Harry can see on the kitchen table. They walk down the road together. Dusk is beginning to set in, and the hot summer air of the midday is starting to disappear. Harry sucks in a deep breath of cooling air and lets it calm him.

Lupin pulls him aside before Harry slips back into the Dursley's house.

"I want to say, Harry. I'm very proud of you, of how you handled this all. Not everyone would show such compassionate towards their enemy. Your—Your parents would be proud too."

Harry smiles at Lupin and is at once overwhelmed with gratitude for Lupin in his life.

"Thank you, Remus."

Lupin gives him a small smile in return and disappears into the street behind Harry. Harry doesn't watch him go, instead slipping in through the back door and hurrying up the stairs before Aunt Petunia can tell him to do the dinner dishes.


	2. Truce

A week goes by without much happening. In an unnerving way, harboring a fugitive Death Eater who still mostly hates him isn't all that different from being completely alone, except now he collects of couple of hours of sleep on the floor each night instead of his bed. He'd offered, giving Malfoy's— condition, that he use the bed to sleep. Which was all fine really, it's a lumpy mattress anyway, but the fact that Malfoy takes him up on it without even a little bit of guilt annoys Harry immensely. The bloody Slytherin.

Harry finds it easier to focus on the moments that Draco Malfoy is annoying than the moments where he isn't. Annoying Malfoy comments every morning about the lack of a full breakfast spread, complains about eating cold leftovers for lunch and dinner, complains about the showers and Harry's selection of books. He makes the snide comments about Harry's hair and the way he chews. He sounds like the enemy that Harry remembers.

But what irks Harry is that most of the time isn't Annoying Malfoy but Silent Malfoy. Silent Malfoy doesn't say anything to Harry when he falls asleep, out exhaustion and boredom, for thirty minutes every day around three. Silent Malfoy reads textbooks all day and didn't even laugh when Harry trips crossing the room to open the window. He doesn't ask Harry why he keeps rereading the same papers or occasionally disappearing downstairs to weed the garden. Silent Malfoy doesn't start a conversation, or carry one on, and Harry can't tell if it's because he's thinking Harry isn't a worthy conversationalist or if it's because he is just that different now.

Harry should probably just count himself lucky they aren't at each other's throats every day (because honestly, why the fuck would he _miss_ that), or maybe consider himself selfish for wanting Malfoy to snap out of it, despite having been tortured and, well, _impregnated_.

That's another thing Harry can't wrap his mind around, and he can't bring himself to ask more about it yet. He tries to look at Malfoy's stomach when he's not paying attention, but it doesn't look like there's anything there. Harry wonders when Malfoy takes the potions he has, carried in a little bag he keeps tucked under his black cloak. He half hopes Malfoy just made the whole thing up to get Harry to let him stay. The whole idea of it still makes him alternate between slightly sick to his stomach and unable to choke down a laugh.

As the week drags on, however, it becomes very clear to Harry that while he hates Draco Malfoy, but he also hates being ignored by blonde. It's a troubling realization that just seems to escalate, until a couple things happen quickly.

The first is an owl that arrives just before dawn, carrying a brief and vague note in Lupin's neat script:

 _Your aunt can bring it to your birthday party -M_

Harry stares at it for a long moment before he remembers his aunt and uncle are leaving Number 4 hours before he's supposed to, and driving to their safe house where they can avoid being kidnapped and tortured for information about the nephew they know nothing about. He passes the note to Malfoy, who's watching him carefully from his cross legged spot on the bed.

"Lovely," he drawls, but he hands it back to Harry. "Sounds like I'm a weapon though. Not sure it avoids sounding suspicious."

Harry rolls his eyes.

"And anyone who knows me would think it's suspicious to claim my aunt would actually come to my birthday party." Harry's tone is dry. He smirks at the other boy. "But I think the point is that no one would be able to guess the truth here."

Malfoy nods and Harry can't tell if his expression is curious or just bored. Whatever the look, Malfoy quickly pushes it off his face.

"Who's it from?" He asks awhile later, while Harry is at his desk staring at the front page of the prophet, a twisted building that looks like it used to be muggle offices.

"Lupin," he replies, not able to tear his eyes away from the headline. _Rebel Wizards Attack Muggle Workplace: Muggle Authorities Once Again Citing Gas Leak._ He mutters darkly, "Rebels, yeah?"

"What?"

Harry turns his eyes to Malfoy, surprised to find him still watching Harry. It was rare in this last week for Malfoy to show interest in anything Harry had to say, but Harry supposes a note about the blonde himself would be the one thing to capture his attention.

"The Prophet, claiming _rebels_ are destroying buildings and killing muggles. Like we don't know who's doing it. Where did they even think of that? Fucking Prophet."

"Why do you read it then?" Malfoy asks. Harry almost glares at him, before he realizes Malfoy's tone is more curious than condescending. Surprisingly, Malfoy holds out his hand for the paper. Harry hesitates, before unfolding the first section and passing over the front page. He holds the rest tight in his fist. Malfoy raises an eyebrow, but says nothing.

"It's good to know what they're saying, even if it's trash," Harry answers finally. "It's better than blindly trying to guess how much control Voldemort has over the Ministry."

Malfoy almost nods in agreement, but seems to catch himself. The part of Harry that is still twelve awards himself a mental point. He looks back down at the paper, wrinkling his nose at the next section, which is just celebrity news. He's relieved to not see his name.

"It's very bizarre, that this is what your summers were like," Malfoy says. "It's not how I pictured it."

Harry snorts.

"Thought of me a lot over the summer, huh Malfoy?" He says, but there's not a lot of heat behind it. He ducks in his chair as Malfoy throws a book at him. It lands next to him with a heavy thud and Harry smirks. "You know, I guess that letter means they're going to find out you're here."

"Does that mean I can finally go to the bathroom without you following me around like a ponce?"

Harry doesn't blink.

"Go on then," he shrugs. "But you're on your own. Might as well explain to them exactly why you're here while you're at it, I'm sure they'd love to hear."

"Do you have to be so difficult?" Malfoy sighs. Harry's head snaps up.

"You're joking, right? At least I'm not over there, sulking in silence and pretending that everything's normal."

"What is that supposed to mean?" There's a dangerous lowness to Malfoy's voice that sends a shot of adrenaline through him. _This_ is more like it, the fighting and the threats, not the tip toeing around each other. The restlessness that has been building inside Harry slowly this summer feels like it's finally hit its breaking point.

"It means your bloody pregnant, Malfoy. Like there's a baby _growing_ inside your stomach. And yet you pop in here like that's not the weirdest shit I've ever heard, mention it once and then just pretend everything is—"

Malfoy rises to his feet and Harry can almost feel the anger radiating off him. It gives Harry energy.

"Merlin, Potter, don't you know when to shut up?" He hisses. "You think this is easy for me?"

"Of course it's not easy," Harry rolls his eyes and folds his arms, refusing to stand up. "But I don't know how you expected me to believe you, when you came here like you had _no idea_ how evil Voldemort was when you first let him mark you."

Malfoy jerks backwards slightly, and Harry tries to squash the guilt in his chest at the reaction. The mature part of him, the person he was the night Malfoy came in, the person that Lupin said he was proud of, seems very far away.

"Oh _silly_ me." Draco practically growls, and he steps closer to Harry and stands near the desk. The feeling of guilt slips away. "I forgot that I was here trying to win you over, Potter. I thought I was escaping a madman."

"A madman you helped, all last year!" Harry waves a hand, incredulous. "That your father always—"

"Don't. Don't talk about my father." Malfoy's eyes are fire, his calm mask completely gone, and Harry can see the muscle in his jaw twitch, can see his fist curling at his side. "You want to talk about families? Why the fuck doesn't yours feed you? You sneak around here like a bloody criminal. You hide away in this room, rereading propaganda and staying up all night so you don't wake up screaming. I've heard you. You're pathetic, Potter."

Harry swallows hard. He doesn't know why he's shocked at Malfoy's words, but he is. They seem heavier than the normal schoolyard taunts they would throw at each other, and Harry takes a deep breath in.

"I don't know why everyone thinks you can save this war," Malfoy continues, his eyes narrow and his posh accent cutting through the air like a knife. "You can't even be bloody civil to me, and I've done nothing but stay out of your way."

"You've done nothing?" Harry says, his mouth dropping open despite himself. Where did Malfoy get off on being the bigger man in all of this?

 _Because you're being a tit_ , the voice in his head whispers, and Harry knows its right, but he doesn't want to admit it. Another voice, one that sounds a lot like Hermione, suggests that while it's probably normal to prefer fighting with Malfoy instead of dealing with the war, it that doesn't mean he should give in to the urge.

"What have I done, the whole time I've been here? Complain about eating cake for breakfast? Sorry, next time I'll just die of malnutrition."

"Stop being dramatic—"

"Didn't you even stop to think that there might be a reason I need to eat a real breakfast?"

It's the first time since the night he arrived that Malfoy addresses the fact that he's somehow pregnant and it stops Harry for snapping anything back. He closes his mouth and rubs at his eyes. The guilt is back suddenly, and it hits Harry like the Whomping Willow.

"Bloody hell," he mutters. "Fine. You're right. I'm sorry."

Gray eyes blink at Harry, and he guesses Malfoy didn't expect him to back down so quickly...

"Er—alright, Potter."

Harry shakes his head, feeling tired.

"No, it's not alright," he sighs. He stands up and crosses over to the window so he doesn't have to looks at the other boy. "I know you didn't ask for—what happened. I know it's not your fault your parents were always Death Eaters. I can't imagine what it's like. I just… I don't know. Maybe we should have a truce?"

"A truce?" A bewildered drawl comes from behind him. "This isn't the Gryffindor common room, Potter."

Harry groans in frustration and spins back around.

"Forget it," he snaps. "You're impossible."

"Mature," he says, but he seems calm again and unconcerned. They stare at each other, Harry glaring and Malfoy refusing to blink. "You should introduce me to your relatives," he adds after a while.

Harry pushes at his eyes underneath his glasses. "Yeah, alright. Come on then."

"What, now?"

"Yes, now," Harry says, crossing over to the door and pulling it open. He hears footsteps behind him and finds himself relieved that Malfoy is following him. "I think I preferred you quiet, you know."

"You didn't," Malfoy whispers as the go down the staircase. Harry's skin prickles with irritation, but he doesn't want to think about how close Malfoy actually might be to the truth.

They head to the living room, where all three Dursleys are watching the evening news. It's a fluff piece at this point, something about an old lady at the shopping mall. Malfoy stops just short of Harry's side, and he's once again reminded at how surreal this all is.

Uncle Vernon is the first to notice the pair. He turns beady eyes on them, and his booming voice makes Aunt Petunia jump.

"Who the devil is that, boy?" He spits out, and although there are no veins popping out of his head, Harry doesn't want it to get there. He takes a steady breath and lies quickly.

"Ma— Draco. Draco Malfoy," Harry begins, thinking fast. He tries not to wince at how bloody weird the name sounds on his tongue. He can practically hear Malfoy's smirk beside him and it grows Harry's irritation even more. "He's going to be a part of your protection next week. As you travel."

Aunt Petunia wrinkles her nose and looks Malfoy up and down, but Harry's unsure of what she'll find to critique. Despite refusing to borrow anything of Harry's and re wearing the same black ensemble for a week, Malfoy looks just as put together as he always does.

"Now I've been thinking," Uncle Vernon says, pushing himself out of his recliner and shaking his finger at Harry. "We're not leaving."

Harry's heard this argument a dozen times already this summer and he sighs.

"You know why it's important," he says firmly. "It's your best protection—"

"I don't get it. I think you've got something up your sleeve, boy, and I don't like the fact that you've invited someone unannounced. He's not _staying_ here. He's not welcome."

Aunt Petunia sniffs. Harry is surprised to see that Dudley is determinedly not looking at his parents, his eyes instead locked on the floor.

"Excuse me, sir," Malfoy says, and his voice is pure aristocracy and _status_. "I ensure you that your protection is my only goal here. I would not be here otherwise."

Harry can almost hear Malfoy sending him the dark look, and he fights the urge to roll his eyes. He knows Malfoy's putting it on, but he doesn't need to make it so dramatic.

Uncle Vernon's eyes, on the other hand, seem to light up at the insinuation that he is not alone in detesting Harry. He seems to struggle with something for a moment, and Harry's sure it's a war between his uncle's love of important people, hatred of magical people, and most importantly, his hatred of Harry. After a moment he seems to decide, and straightens up with an air of self-importance. "Oh, of course. Petunia, dear, perhaps Harry can stay in his old room for the time being?"

Harry's stomach drops. That's not a conversation he wants to have with Malfoy, of all people.

"The guest room will be fine, Vernon," Aunt Petunia says quickly, and Harry wonders if she doesn't completely buy that it's not an act. Uncle Vernon opens his mouth to argue, but closes it at the stern expression on his wife's face.

"Of course," he says, sounding deflated. "Petunia will make sure it is ready. Are you hungry?"

Draco says yes almost instantly, and before Harry knows it, he's somehow back upstairs and Malfoy is sitting at the dinner table alone, with food from the Dursleys. Irritated and confused, he lies down on his bed and forces himself to fall asleep.

When he wakes up, he's sweating. There's an image stuck in his mind, an old man who Harry doesn't recognize, and pounding in his ears of the man screaming and Voldemort's cold voice demanding to know, to know….

"Potter," Draco hisses. Harry opens his eyes, suddenly aware of the long fingers on his shoulders shaking Harry awake. He blinks, trying to focus his eyes but everything is blurry. Squinting, he throws a hand out onto the floor near the bed and feels around for his glasses. He finds them and shoves them onto his face. Malfoy comes in to focus, the expression on his face his unreadable.

"Sorry," Harry mutters, swiping a hand across his forehead, wiping off sweat and soothing his burning scar. He sits up quickly. The room is dark, with faint moonlight the only source of light in the room. It flickers over Malfoy's face and makes him look less like Malfoy.

"Are you going to—" Draco breaks off and he seems to change his mind. He sits on the edge of the bed, farthest from Harry. He doesn't seem angry with Harry anymore, and Harry supposes that having a real meal probably helped with that. "Your relatives are awful. Disgusting."

Harry snorts.

"You got that right, at least."

Malfoy looks over at Harry. Harry shuffles uncomfortably under his gaze. After a moment, he reaches out a hand, and Harry notices what looks like a BLT wrapped in a paper towel. He reaches out slowly to grab it, unsure if Malfoy's experiencing weird pregnancy hormones or if this is supposed to be some kind of peace offering.

"Thanks," he says, trying to hide his surprise and failing. Malfoy just shrugs.

"They didn't offer you any," Malfoy says, and it's not a question. Harry feels a flush creep up his neck and he's thankful it's dark. He takes a large bite of the sandwich to avoid saying anything. "And your uncle enjoyed going on and on about how much trouble you've caused them. I have to say, I was rather insulted. I thought I had the market covered on hating you."

Harry chokes on the piece of sandwich he's chewing. "I think you're forgetting the biggest one," he says weakly, once he can breathe. He waves a hand to his forehead.

Malfoy grins, and it's so surprising that Harry almost believes it's just a trick of the low light. The smile softens Malfoy's normally harsh features and Harry wonders if this is the Malfoy that other people see, in the dorms, with his friends. It's a strange idea.

"Well, _he_ might want to kill you," Malfoy says, rolling his eyes like he's announcing the weather, "but he's never had to sit through a Double Potions with you, which is what really pushes one over the edge."

"Oh ha," Harry says. They fall both silent, neither of them looking at the other. Harry's thinking of their earlier fight and wondering if he should mention it, but Malfoy seems calm now and Harry is no longer hungry or angry either, and he doesn't want to start throwing insults around. He hopes he's gotten that out of his system, at least for a while. He lies back onto the bed and stares up at the ceiling.

"Do you think," Draco says suddenly, snapping Harry out of his stupor, "that it's any good to talk about these things?"

"These things?"

"Blimey, Potter," Draco says, and his voice his muffled like he's rubbing his face. "You don't do subtlety at all, do you?"

Harry's hand picks at a loose thread of the sheet beneath him. He snorts.

"Not really, no."

"The stuff one doesn't normally tell people." Draco lets out a frustrated sigh, "Those things. Your shitty relatives. That they basically ignore you all day and make weird hints over dinner about putting you back in a cupboard, which I don't understand. The fact that I'm a pr—pregnant seventeen year old wizard. How I _became_ a pregnant seventeen year old wizard. I've just been, ignoring it all. But maybe these are things you're supposed to tell people about."

Harry closes his eyes and briefly wishes that he could be anywhere else, than in this conversation with bloody Draco Malfoy, who for whatever reason now seems to have abandoned Silent Malfoy for Bloody Fucking Chatty Malfoy instead.

"I don't know," he answers eventually. "I think maybe it does. You know, when you can talk to people, like your friends and family. People who know you."

There's a long pause. When Malfoy speaks, it's so quiet that Harry has to strain his ears to hear him.

"I don't really have those anymore, do I Potter?"

It shouldn't shock Harry, hearing that, but it does. He supposes he hasn't thought of that. Instead he was thinking of their time trapped together as a temporary problem, that once they left he would have Ron and Hermione again, the rest of the Weasleys, the Order, people he could trust. He hasn't realized, hadn't even thought that Malfoy didn't have any of those things outside this room, not anymore and not even that he could just send an owl to. He thinks about how alone he felt these last two weeks and about what would happen if that feeling just never went away.

"I suppose you're right," Harry says, slowly, making a decision. He might not be the best person to hear all this and he's definitely not ready to for it, but he supposes he's been selfish enough and he's supposed to be an adult now. He stretches and sits up, leaning against the wall with his pillows, looking at Malfoy. The blonde is sitting crossed legged on the foot of the bed, looking intently at his fingernail. "I guess you should go for it, then."

Malfoy looks up at him with wide eyes and then shakes his head in what looks like disbelief.

"This is surreal."

Harry, who is clearly going insane, laughs.

"Just wait until we get to The Burrow. It sounds like you'll be coming from my aunt and uncles safe house. Which will be a pity for Uncle Vernon, he really seemed to like you."

"The Burrow?" His eyebrows rise.

"Ron's house." Harry can't help the hint of a challenge that makes his way into his tone, daring Malfoy to say anything bad about the Weasleys. Nothing comes but a soft _hmph_ from the blonde boy. "You'll survive. They've got to be better than being at your house, for one. And I think Lupin filled them in, about everything. No one's going to curse you on sight."

"That's not really my concern," Malfoy says softly. Harry can't help but gape at him. It could be the fact that he's pregnant, that they're alone, that they're out of Hogwarts with nobody to act as Malfoy's henchman, or maybe it's just everything that happened to Malfoy in the course of a year, but Harry can't keep up with the mood changes he keeps seeing from the blonde. The introspection and the calmness are not traits he ever would have associated with Malfoy. He thinks that he likes them, although he's not sure if he trusts them to stick around once they're out of this little muggle room. "I don't have my wand, for one. I doubt Gryffindors are the type to attack the defenseless."

"Isn't it weird, not having your wand?"

Malfoy sends Harry a look like he's the biggest idiot ever.

"How would you have liked, walking into my house for help, wandless?"

Harry bites his tongue to stop himself from saying _I would never go to your house for help, actually_.

"Point," Harry says instead, with a tilt of his head. "You know, it's actually pretty brave, what you're doing."

Again, the same accusing look from Malfoy is shot at him. Harry can't help but agree, and curses himself for never just thinking before he says something.

"I didn't do it to be brave, Potter. I did it to save myself and, well to save _it_ as well." He presses a palm against his stomach. It still looks so flat to Harry, and he can't imagine what it will look like in a few months.

"No one usually does anything to be brave," Harry says, honestly. "You do it because it seems right. Most of the time you're still scared shitless anyway."

Draco laughs. It's short but it's a real laugh, and it doesn't sound cruel or patronizing. Harry's captivated by it despite himself.

"You're scared, huh Potter?" He says, and despite the lingering smile that is sent his way, Harry can hear the serious question behind it. He hesitates for a moment before answering, but there's something about telling this to Malfoy, who knows what Voldemort just as much as Harry. It feels different than telling Ron and Hermione. He loves his friends, but Ron's buck it up optimism and Hermione's analysis of all possible outcomes sometimes doesn't leave room for the constant stream of panic that has been building in Harry over the last year.

"I'd be stupid not to be," he says finally, and Malfoy, to his point, doesn't say anything about Harry and stupid being mentioned so close together. "Wouldn't I? I know that in most ways you puzzle this out, Voldemort kills me. I don't think about— after Hogwarts. I don't think I ever really did. It's terrifying."

Harry half expects a _but your Harry Potter_ or a _you've faced worse_ , but Malfoy says neither.

"So how do you do it, then? Fight the war? How do you not just—"

"Run the fuck in the other direction?" Harry asks, with a dry laugh. "I don't know. I guess that option is more terrifying, somehow."

"I think I actually understood that," he says after a while, looking at Harry he's seeing him for the first time. "Merlin, Potter, what did you do to me?"

"I've been mixing your drinks with love potions," he says, stretching his arms above his head until his shoulder blades crack.

They look at each other for a moment and burst into laughter, and it feels rejuvenating after the all the silence Harry had been living in this summer.

"I'll be on your side," he blurts out, once they've stopped laughing and are breathing heavily together, halfway out of breath. "At The Burrow. I'm not going to let them, make fun of you or anything."

"Always for the underdog, eh Potter?" Malfoy mutters, but he rolls his eyes. Harry grins.

"That's me, _Draco."_

Malfoy snorts.

"That was bloody weird, earlier. I never thought you would be introducing me as _Draco_ to your relatives."

"You also used to think my relatives worshipped me," Harry points out. Draco smirks and pulls his knees to his chest.

"Yeah, I guess I did."

The room all the sudden seems much too small as they look at each other. Harry feels as though he is drowning in the never ending surrealness, the closeness of Draco Malfoy, and the pure honesty that it's too late to take back. Harry looks at the wall behind Malfoy's head, trying to focus on his breathing.

It's probably only a minute before Malfoy opens his mouth to say something, but it feels like an eternity.

"Well," he says, with a dramatic sigh and a trademark smirk, "history was always going to put you down as the brave hero and me as your insane death eater nemesis, so I guess I don't have much to lose."

Harry rolls his eyes and throws a pillow from behind his head at Malfoy.

"Shut it," he says. But he's still smiling as well, and the two of them move around the room getting ready to sleep in a companionable silence for the first time all week. When Malfoy slips out to disappear into the guest bedroom Aunt Petunia had graciously offered, Harry fights the smallest thought in his head that he isn't quite ready to be alone again.

It's the day they are all set to leave Number Four when Malfoy wakes up vomiting. Harry is already awake, having sat up through the night organizing his school trunk and getting ready to leave. He's returning to the kitchen the tea cup he broke around midnight, the one Dudley must have set out as a booby trap, Harry supposes, when he hears the sound of retching coming from the hallway bathroom. Slightly disgusted, but remembering the fragile truce they have been able to maintain these additional weeks, he knocks on the bathroom door. There's a shuffling sound and a long moment before the door opens, showing a Malfoy clearly trying to look presentable and not like he was just puking his guts out. Once he sees its Harry though, he sags and his hair falls forward into his eyes.

"Oh," he says, and he sounds terrible. Harry winces. "It's you. I thought it might be your aunt, ready to turn on me for messing up her perfect bathroom."

"Nah, they left. Something about needing _supplies_ before they leave earlier. I'm not sure what they're expecting. Probably a cave, or a prison, by the sounds of it."

He leans against the doorframe and watches Malfoy carefully. There's a green tinge to his cheeks and he's lined in a thin layer a sweat, but he looks like some color is returning to his face.

"Morning sickness," he says, sounding disgusted. Harry's not sure if it's the nausea or the idea of morning sickness behind the tone. Either way, this is the first sign that Malfoy is actually pregnant and makes Harry feel a little sick as well.

"I kind of kept hoping you had made all of this up," he says honestly, gesturing halfheartedly to the toilet. It's a mark of progress in the last few weeks that Malfoy doesn't punch him but instead rolls his eyes and scoffs at him. He turns towards the sinks and begins washing his hands. Harry notices the blonde seems to be avoiding looking directly into the mirror.

"Eloquent and thoughtful as always, Potter."

"I try," he says, grinning again. He wonders, and has actually spent a lot of time wondering, about what it will be like with the two of them at The Burrow. He's not sure how long they plan on having Malfoy stay, or if they are planning on moving him to a safe house as well, but he figures that the Order will most likely want to keep their eyes on him. And it won't hurt, Harry figures, to have a woman who had given birth six times there to keep tabs on Malfoy either.

But mostly Harry wonders if he and Malfoy will go back to openly hating each other. He can't say that he detests the blonde anymore, not after the events of this summer. It's hard to hate Malfoy when he's not acting like Malfoy. But an uneasy truce doesn't mean the last few weeks haven't had their share of tense and awkward silences, and he also knows that a truce forged when you're stuck in close quarters with each other is much different than actually forgiving someone. He's sure that being surrounded by Weasleys who haven't been stuck with the blonde guy for three weeks will quickly remind Harry of everything Malfoy still had to make up for. Harry supposes that while he's willing to give Malfoy the chance to make amends, another chance could simply mean another chance and nothing more.

Even more so, he's not sure he's ready to face Ron in explaining all of this. As the day to leave has gotten closer and closer, Harry has found himself worrying less about horcruxes and more about what people are going to say to Malfoy, and Harry. The whole pregnancy issue has become a _I'll think it when I have to but otherwise let's not talk about it_ kind of thing, and Harry's sure that Ron and Hermione won't see it that way. It's not just that the idea of male pregnancy still freaks him out, although it definitely does, but more so that he doesn't really want to openly analyze something so incredibly personal. Although Harry might have joked about it with Ron when they were twelve, he isn't twelve anymore and he has seen enough torture to know that some things are better left alone.

It was all very complicated. And to think, at the beginning of the summer, Harry had thought things couldn't have been more difficult.

Malfoy, for his part, has said very little about leaving Privet Drive. He seems unfazed by it, but Harry's not entirely convinced. He knows he's not the only one who wakes up in the middle of the night trying not to shout out, because he can hear what must be nightmares keeping Malfoy tossing and turning throughout most nights.

"I wasn't expecting this," he hears Malfoy say, and Harry snaps out of his stupor and focuses back on the green tiled bathroom. "How was I not expecting this? Fuck. This is horrifying."

An interesting fact about Malfoy, Harry quickly learned, is that he's extremely chatty when he's not actively your enemy. Harry doesn't know if he just likes the sound of his own voice or what, but he rambles on quite frequently, offering his opinions and insights into almost anything. The gossip column of Harry's Daily Prophet the other morning, for example, which featured an article on some French singer Harry had never heard of, sent Malfoy into a solid fifteen minute admiration-turned-tirade of the singer in question. Who, as far as Harry could surmise from the whole rant, was actually from Belgium and might be charming her voice better.

So Malfoy's conversational horror about, well, _being pregnant_ , doesn't shock Harry as much as maybe it should. Harry, on the other hand, has never been good at talking about things that make him uncomfortable. He shrugs awkwardly in response.

"Yeah, well…" he says, knowing he sounds like an idiot. He continues on quickly. "Just wanted to make sure you weren't actually dying. I'm going to finish packing."

He leaves Malfoy, who is most likely glaring at him, in the bathroom, and hides in his room until hours later, when the sound of the Dursleys throwing bags around and moving them outside to the car convinces him that it's time.

He's just about to open the door, when the doorknob twists and Malfoy appears. He blinks at Harry, looking surprised to see him standing so close to the door already. Harry is eerily reminded of Malfoy's sudden appearance not even a month ago. He wonders if Malfoy is thinking about it too.

"I think we're leaving," Malfoy says slowly, and his face is impassive. Harry nods.

"Okay then," he says. He sighs and heaves his trunk behind him. Hedwig gives him an annoyed hoot as her cage jerks against the top of the trunk. "Let's do this, I guess."

Parting from the Dursleys is a strange relief. The dark look on Malfoy's face as he follows them out the door, with a very shocked but surprisingly silent Hestia Jones and Dedalus Diggle, is entertaining at least. For the most part, the two wizards ignored Malfoy, and although Hestia did send a glare towards the blonde when he wasn't looking, Harry could tell that they had been given some kind of instruction to at least not curse Malfoy. At least not in front of Harry, but he supposes he was more worried about the two wizards handling Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia then Malfoy at the moment.

Harry tries to let himself forget about Malfoy once the group is gone. Instead, he finds himself still thinking fifteen minutes later about Dudley, and the fact that his cousin actually seemed to appreciate Harry saving his life. It's an interesting change, and Harry wonders, if somehow makes it through this war alive, of him and Dudley will ever speak again.

But he doesn't let himself dwell of the idea of life after the war, instead moving through the Dursleys house in quiet conversation with Hedwig. It seems weird to be thinking of leaving this house for good, but here he is. He sits in the kitchen and waits out the few minutes of quiet, with a twisted feeling in his gut that tells him it'll probably be his last moment of peace for a while.


	3. The Burrow

Chapter Three

A/N: Here's a bonus update! I managed to get some extra writing done, so I thought I would share a little early. :)

Just a quick explanation: I'm not going to be rewriting parts that line up with exactly what happened in canon. For example, in this chapter we join Harry after he gets to The Burrow, assuming that everything happened during their trip in the same way it did in the 7th book. I figure JKR already wrote these scenes much better than I ever can, so I won't bore you with my half assed renditions.

But if anyone has wants clarification on how something works with the canon of Deathly Hallows, please feel free to ask! And as always, reviews are the fluff that keeps me going.

It's only hours later but somehow feels like days have passed, when Harry finds himself in the Weasley's kitchen with firewhiskey burning his throat. They had all made it to The Burrow despite their disastrous trip from Little Whinging. All except Mad-Eye, who had fallen from his broom fighting the Death Eaters that had shot out of nowhere, and the coward Mundungus who had fled their traveling group and left Moody to fight alone. Harry feels numb, thinking about Moody. He almost hadn't believed Bill when he told them all, hadn't wanted to believe him. He doesn't want to keep thinking about it, or about the Death Eaters, or his wands strange reaction to Voldemort's, or about George either, who is still laying on the couch in the adjacent room, exhausted and bloody.

Harry feels sick to his stomach about the whole thing. He tries, honestly tries, not to feel responsible. But he must be failing, if Hermione's watchful gaze is any indicator. He can't help the guilt, however, and there is a small trickle of fear in the back of his stomach that any minute the Weasleys might realize just how much Harry has cost them. He sips at his firewhiskey and glances around the kitchen at the sad and silent faces, wondering how they all got to this point. He thinks back to when he was eleven and he first met the Weasleys on the platform; how young and happy everyone looked. It seems decades away.

Harry stays silent as he watches, but it's not long before the kitchen begins to buzz with noise once more as people break out of their stupors and beginning to questioning each other, confirming everyone is truly in one piece. From her spot near the kitchen sink, Hermione moves to stand close to Harry. On his other side, Ron moves in as well, leaning towards Harry to hear Hermione's words.

"Don't feel guilty, Harry," she says to him, her voice low and with an undertone of pity that makes Harry more uncomfortable. She looks completely like Hermione again, but her hands are hidden in the too long sweater sleeves she had worn to match Harry. There's a small cut above her eyebrow that Harry finds himself staring at. Next to him, Ron stands too close to him, heat radiating off of him and making Harry feel trapped in this tiny kitchen.

"I'm not," he lies, and takes another swig of firewhiskey.

Hermione opens her mouth and looks like she's about to argue when Ron cuts in.

"It's a shame about Mad-Eye," he says slowly, and his voice is thick but determined. "But I reckon he wouldn't want us all bent up about it."

It's probably one of the more tactful things Ron has probably ever said, and Harry smiles at him despite the pit of despair in his stomach. Hermione beams at Ron, with a small look of surprise behind her eyes that makes Ron blush.

"I suppose," Harry says. He lets out a deep breath and looks around the kitchen, seeing other tentative smiles. His eyes land on a watery eyed but blushing Tonks, who has Lupin's arm wrapped around her shoulder as he whispers something in her ear. And despite everything, despite all the worries and fear running through him, Harry looks around at the incredibly resilient people around him and knows that they'll be okay. On the other side of the room, Ginny catches his eyes for a moment, offering him a gentle smile before returning to the conversation with her mother.

"We should go sit," Hermione says after a while. People are beginning to quiet down, Lupin and Tonks have gone home, and Mrs. Weasley and Ginny have slipped into the living room with Fred and George. Ron jerks his head towards the garden, and the three of them make their way past Mr. Weasley and Charlie, who both seem to have drank too much firewhiskey and digressed into a conversation on how pretty Rita Skeeter might actually be. Ron rolls his eyes as they walk by and Hermione giggles.

"Blimey," Ron says, once they're out in the garden. "Dad never can hold his alcohol."

Harry sucks in a breath of cool summer night air and smirks. Hermione giggles again and they settle under a big oak tree at the edge of the garden. Running his fingers through the grass, Harry looks up at the cloudy sky and realizes he can't see any stars. They sit in silence for a while. Harry's grateful that his two best friends don't automatically jump into a discussion of their impending plans.

"So…" Ron says eventually, and his tone is a forced nonchalance that Harry sees through immediately. His stomach tightens.

"Ron," Hermione says. "You promised to be civil."

Harry looks between the two. Ron raises his hands up in surrender. The gesture sparks a memory in Harry's brain, and he groans and swears as he remembers, Draco Malfoy, sneaking into his room his hands raised. How did he _forget_ about Malfoy?

"I'm going to be civil!" Ron exclaims and Hermione gives him a look that quite clearly says she doesn't believe him.

"Well, I wasn't sure! You had that tone—"

"What _tone_ —"

"Draco Malfoy," Harry cuts in wearily, and the two stop bickering instantly and their eyes snap to him. "I can't believe I forgot about— bloody Malfoy. _Fuck_."

"So," Ron repeats, and this time Hermione doesn't say anything, "it's all true."

"I don't know what exactly you know." Harry picks at a patch of grass. "But yeah, I'd assume so."

Ron lets out a low whistle.

"That's freaky, mate."

"You're telling me," Harry says under his breath. "Tho' I expect they'll be giving him veritaserum, to make sure. But he was in the bathroom all morning puking, so…."

Ron turns a delicate shade of green and Hermione looks horrified.

"That's terrifying, isn't it?" She says. "That Vol-Voldemort's experimenting like that? Isn't torturing innocent muggles enough?"

Ron grimaces, although Harry's not sure if it's from the mention of Voldemort's name or of the torture. He supposes it's probably a bit of both.

"Yeah, I suppose it is," Harry says quietly. He's thankful that neither of them have laughed, or began the _but it's Malfoy argument_ , although he's not really sure why. He guesses that he just doesn't have the energy to fight about it.

"Hell, I wouldn't wish that on anyone," is all Ron says. Harry looks back up at the sky and watches a cloud wrap around the moon before slowly floating past.

"It was strange," Harry says finally, "but I had a hard time hating him anymore. I mean, we fought, but we mostly just— tolerated each other."

"That's bloody bizarre," Ron says, so seriously that both Harry and Hermione laugh despite themselves.

"You're telling me," Harry retorts. "You didn't wake up to the blonde git outside your bedroom."

"Do you think he'll be alright?" Hermione asks, and Harry has to admire his best friend, who he supposes has more reason to never offer Malfoy forgiveness than either him or Ron. Harry knows, however, that as much as Malfoy teased Harry for always siding with the underdog, he has nothing on Hermione's moral need to fight for whoever had been wronged. And shockingly, somehow the person who had been wronged this time was Draco Malfoy.

In response to her question, though, him and Ron just shrug. Harry feels exhausted, the combination of adrenaline, fear, sadness, guilt, and alcohol finally catching up to him. He lays back on the grass, not minding that it's slightly damp with dew already. There's a pause before Ron and Hermione join him. He can feel a stray strand of curly hair on his cheek and Ron's leg brushes against Harry's as they settle in.

"I thought he'd be here by now," Harry says, to no one in particular, although he's not surprised when Hermione answers.

"He's coming in—in the morning." She stifles a yawn behind her hand, but makes no move to get up. Despite everything that has happened tonight and everything they will face in the morning, Harry is overwhelming with thankfulness that he is finally back with his friends. He feels calm in a way that he hasn't all summer.

"How's everyone going to take that?" Harry asks.

"It'll be weird," Ron says slowly. "And although I'm feeling sorry for him now, if he says one thing—"

"I don't think he will," Hermione tries to cut in, but Harry shakes his head.

"He might," he says. "I'm not really sure who he's trying to be anymore. I don't think he knows either."

Ron wrinkles his nose.

"Draco Malfoy, pregnant," Ron says slowly. "Fuck, I wish we still had that time turner, Hermione."

"Why?"

"So I could go back to a year ago and put a million galleons down on Malfoy getting bloody pregnant and switching sides. I would have made a fortune."

Harry and Hermione laugh, and it feels good.

"When's the wedding?" he asks after a while, feeling like they'll end up talking about Malfoy enough in the next few weeks. He turns his head to glance at Ron, who's rolling his eyes.

"Just after your birthday. I supposed we'll leave then."

Harry stares up at the sky. He thinks of the sacrifices everyone made for him tonight, of Moody and Hedwig and….

"Are you both sure—"

Hermione lets out a frustrated sigh and Ron sends her a look that looks strangely like _I told you so_.

"Yes, Harry. We're sure. We're coming with you." She takes a deep breath and Harry's struck with the observation that she sounds much older than he remembers. "We… well we'll tell you more later. I don't want to talk about it now."

"Okay," Harry says, confused, but he lets it drop.

"We meant it, mate. We're not letting you go alone," Ron adds, and Harry smiles faintly at him. He's touched by their words, but he can't shake the feeling that he's letting his friends get in too deep, that his risking their lives. Before he can say anything else though, Ron sits up suddenly. He stretches and yawns.

"I'm bloody knackered," he says. "I'm going to bed, before Mum comes out to yell at us."

"Me too," Hermione says, and Ron helps her to her feet, before holding out a hand to Harry. He considers just staying out in the chill all night, doubting he'll get much sleep anyway, but Ron gives him an appealing look and Harry accepts the proffered hand and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. The three of them move slowly inside, yawning and shivering. The inside of The Burrow is mostly silent now, except for Fred and George's whispers, which carry into the kitchen. Harry and Ron wave goodnight at Hermione as she slips silently into Ginny's room, and the two of them climb up the remaining steps and fall into their respective beds, a routine so familiar that Harry finds himself falling asleep before he can overthink it.

"You've got to be kidding me," Ron says flatly, staring at his mum. It's early morning and Mrs. Weasley has outdone herself for breakfast. There's a warm pink hue of sunrise slipping in through the tiny kitchen window and bathing their table in light. "Malfoy is not sharing my room."

Harry helps himself to more bacon and sips at his tea, exchanging a look with Hermione. This reaction seems much more in character for Ron than last night, Harry figures. Judging by the look on Hermione's face, she agrees.

To be fair, Harry would rather not Malfoy share a room with them either, but he unfortunately seems to be getting used to being stuck with the blonde.

"You're the only room big enough," Mrs. Weasley says, sounding tired. "Charlie's staying in with the twins until the wedding."

" _Mum_ ," Ron groans, but she waves a hand at him.

"You'll be polite, Ronald. Poor kid has rather enough on his plate, doesn't he?"

Ron rolls his eyes and mouths _poor kid_ with an incredulous expression.

"You're forgetting that he was a right git to us at school. For six years! And he'd call Hermione— well, you know."

Mrs. Weasley shoots her son a dark look. On Harry's right side, Ginny snorts despite her mouth full of tea. Swallowing quickly, she cuts in.

"Ron is right, Mum," she says earnestly. "He really was horrible."

"I'm sure he was," Mr. Weasley's voice says from the doorway before them. He walks into the kitchen, dressed for work, and snatches a piece of toast off the table. "But people can change, can't they?"

Ron grunts and Ginny shrugs. Harry can't help but feel this is all going a lot easier when the blonde in question isn't actually here. He finds himself hoping that Malfoy will be able to just keep his mouth shut.

"Are Fred and George still asleep?" Hermione asks, and Mrs. Weasley shoots her a grateful look for the distraction.

"They're awake," she answers, shaking her head. "Just eating in their room. I don't want George overdoing himself."

As Hermione and Mrs. Weasley launch into a conversation about healing techniques and Ron questions his dad about his work for that day, Ginny leans towards Harry. She speaks in a low tone, just so he can hear.

"I can't believe it, about Malfoy," she says. "I'm sorry you were stuck with him all summer. It must have been terrible."

For whatever reason, Harry finds himself irritated by the question. Harry tries to brush his annoyance away, recognizing Ginny's concern as genuine.

"It was fine, actually," he says. "Bizarre, I guess. He seems— different."

"I've yet to be convinced he's not just fooling everyone," she says darkly. There are gray circles under her eyes, Harry noticed, and he wonders if she's been sleeping, before he realizes abruptly that he's not her boyfriend anymore and it's not really his business. He's surprised to be here, feeling so normal talking to her. He had built their reunion up more in his head.

"I don't think it's something he'll be able to fake," Harry says honestly, and Ginny shrugs but seems to consider his words. He takes a deep breath and resigns himself to checking how she's doing. "Hey, Gin—"

"Ginny!" Mrs. Weasley's voice cuts in and makes them both jump slightly. "Can you help me with the dishes?"

Ginny gets up, maybe just a little too quickly. Harry finds that he can't blame her. If he's being honest with himself, he feels a little relieved, to not have to confront… whatever they are to each other.

"Come on," Ron nudges Harry underneath the table with his shoe. "Mum wants us to go _make up the bed_. For bloody Draco Malfoy, I tell you."

"I'll help," Hermione says brightly, but Mrs. Weasley waves a hand at her.

"Oh, dear," she says, and her voice is honey sweet. "I was hoping you could feed the chickens."

"Oh," Hermione says, sounding surprised. "Oh, sure."

"Thank you, Hermione. And Harry, maybe you should wait outside? He should be arriving soon, and he might feel better seeing a, well a more familiar face."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchange incredulous looks at the thought. Harry can't help but feel as though Mrs. Weasley is trying to keep them apart, but he can't imagine why. He catches Ginny's eye, but she only shrugs.

Which is how Harry finds himself outside, leaning against a pillar on the Weasley's front porch as Draco Malfoy appears. And even though Harry has just spent two weeks with the blonde at the Dursleys, welcoming him here at The Burrow is hitting a whole new level of surreal. It's still a little shocking, that the Order decided to keep Malfoy here, after everything last year with Ron and even Bill. But, as Lupin had mentioned offhandedly to Harry sometime last night, they wanted Malfoy somewhere where they can keep an eye on him easily. Somehow, that place is The Burrow.

Malfoy arrives at exactly nine, with the crack of a portkey echoing around the small yard. Always graceful, he doesn't stumble or fall over, Harry realizes with an internal flicker of annoyance. Malfoy does, however, appear to be a shade of off-green. His eyes dart around the tall figure of The Burrow and Harry waits for him to wrinkle his nose or say something, anything, but nothing comes. Malfoy's shoulders lower with what looks like a resigned sigh, before his eyes focus on Harry. Harry, unsure of what to say to him, raises one hand in a weak greeting and sends a lopsided smile that probably looks a lot more like a grimace.

"Hey," Harry calls, and he thinks Malfoy almost smiles but then thinks better of it. He drops the portkey— what looks like a faded t shirt— into the grass and comes up to Harry. Harry tells himself firmly that he's not pleased to see Malfoy stumble slightly as he does so.

"Potter," Malfoy says with a nod. He stops in front of Harry on the porch, seeming to hesitate, eyes flicking to the front door behind Harry. He seems nervous, which he quickly proves to Harry by launching into a ramble. "Your relatives are in their safe house. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if Helga murders them, so it might not be that safe. Your aunt kept going on and on about the lack of windows, which of course I tried to explain to her was because we were _underground_ , but she didn't seem pleased with that."

Harry snorts. "Can't they spell some windows?"

"They're trying to avoid doing magic," Draco says, shaking his head. "It's harder to track that way."

Harry thinks back to when he told Malfoy the same thing, about not having his wand, but decides not to say anything else. There's a look in the blonde's eyes that tells Harry he's probably remembering as well.

"Well, this is The Burrow," Harry says lamely. Malfoy gives him an incredulous look. "Should we go in? You'll be staying in Ron's and mine's room."

Draco doesn't say anything, but Harry thinks he turns slightly greener. They enter in the house and head towards the kitchen staircase. Harry looks around and tries to remember his first impressions of this house, but instead is just overwhelmed with the fondness he has for the tiny homely space. In the corner of the living room, there's the magicked knitting needles still going and a heap of laundry halfway folded on the couch. On the floor, there's a magenta patch quilt that George must have thrown haphazardly before being sent upstairs. On the wall, the family clock sits with all hands pointed to _mortal peril_ , but surrounding the clock are family pictures that move with casual friendliness. In Harry's favorite, it's a summer picture of them all playing Quidditch in the garden. Harry's tackling Fred for the quaffle, and Hermione leans against a tree looking up over her book at them. There's a moment where the flying Ron figure nearly crashes into the side of the house, looking down at her.

Harry looks at all these things and takes them in, because he missed the Burrow so incredibly much this summer, but also because he's avoiding looking at Malfoy. He thinks he might actually punch the git if Harry sees something on his face that he doesn't like, any hint of laughter or ridicule.

Mrs. Weasley is in the kitchen, fussing over a pot of tea. Ginny is nowhere to be seen, which Harry figures was strategic on her part.

Mrs. Weasley turns to face them as they enter, and her soft warm face is smiling, and is doing a good job, Harry thinks, of hiding the hint of distrust from her face. Harry smiles back at her.

"Hello, dear," she says. Her voice is not as warm as when she speaks to Harry, or to Hermione, but it is still calm and soft. Harry notices her eyes glance briefly downward at Malfoy's stomach before looking back up quickly. "No problems getting here?"

Malfoy looks surprised to be addressed so directly. He attempts to smile back and Mrs. Weasley, but instead his normally neutral expression just falls away into a glimmer of nervousness.

"Yes," he says, clearing his threat. "Yes, Ma'am."

Harry takes a moment to appreciate that Malfoy was raised in a pureblood house, with all their attention to manners and politeness. He hopes that it will work in Malfoy's favor. It seems to with Mrs. Weasley, whose face relaxes, just slightly. She waves at Malfoy to sit at the kitchen table. He hesitates, but to his credit, does so without argument. Harry sucks in a deep breath and does so as well, smiling up at the older woman as she slides him and Malfoy a cup of tea.

"Thanks," he says, and receives a familiar fond smile from Mrs. Weasley that makes him feel at home. She sits down next to them and turns to Malfoy with sudden seriousness. Harry notices the blonde's spine somehow straighten even more.

"So," she says, and Harry can tell she's unsure what to call him. "A member of the Order—you do know about the Order?" Malfoy gives a small nod. "Okay, good. A member of the Order will be here shortly, to ask some questions, you know. Just to double check what you told Harry."

Malfoy nods, and he doesn't seem surprised at all.

"And, I'm sure you know, but…" Mrs. Weasley drifts off and seems to be collecting her thoughts. He supposes that she must be overwhelmed by this whole situation too. When she speaks, however, her voice is firm and unwavering. "You're here because it's one of the only places where there's always an Order member around. Now that headquarters is— well, this house is basically the new Order headquarters. When your story checks out, we can let you help out. To an extent. But… but I'm going to be watching you. We all are."

Harry, who wasn't expecting Mrs. Weasley to threaten Malfoy, startles slightly. He expected it from Lupin, or Bill, or even Mr. Weasley, but not the older woman sitting in front of him. He supposes that he should of, as he watches Mrs. Weasley, with her graying hair falling out of its bun, soft eyes, but emboldened expression where she seems much more like a mother fighting off an enemy at the door of her den than she did this morning as she lectured her two youngest children on tolerance. It's a bit of a relief, somehow.

"Of— of course," Malfoy says, his voice cracking slightly. Harry can see his neck turn pink.

"Good," Mrs. Weasley says, and her harsh expression fades slightly as she takes a sip of her tea. She seems to want to say something else, but doesn't seem to know how. Harry figures it's about the whole pregnancy thing. He doesn't blame her for staying silent though; Harry can barely think about it himself, let alone know how to bring it up like a normal piece of conversation. "Good."

Harry clears his throat. Wary gray and brown eyes turn to him.

"Good," he repeats, and although he knows that Mrs. Weasley just threatened Malfoy, that Malfoy doesn't have a wand, that the two of them had somehow gotten on for two weeks, he feels more protective over the Weasleys than of anyone else. Harry tries to keep his tone calm and collected, with a hint of coolness. Much like he used to see Dumbledore do, to be honest. "You'll probably meet most everyone today. I'm sure it'd be best if you just kept out of their way, after that."

Malfoy looks like he's about to glare at Harry, but thinks better of it. The two of them stare at each other instead.

"Now Harry—" Mrs. Weasley begins, faintly, but then Ron's lanky frame appears at the foot of the stairs. He looks out of breath and annoyed, and his voice cuts in loudly over his mother's.

"It's all ready, Mum," He says, before crossing to the kitchen counter and pouring himself a cup of tea and adding three spoonfuls of sugar. To Harry's surprise, it seems as though Ron hasn't noticed Malfoy yet, although Harry figures that Ron wasn't expecting the blonde to be sitting having tea with his mum and best mate. "Even though the spare sheets were not in the attic, they were in the crawlspace in Gin's closet, and there were cobwebs bloody everywhere—"

He turns around to the table and breaks off immediately, his eyes falling on Malfoy.

"Malfoy," he says, his tone low in a challenge. Harry rubs at his eyes behind his glasses.

"We should show him where to put his bag, yeah?" He says, mostly to get out of the kitchen, where Mrs. Weasley, Ron and Draco bloody Malfoy are locked in a staring contest that makes Harry's head spin. Ron nods at Harry without looking away from Malfoy.

Harry leads the way up the stairs, with Malfoy behind him and Ron trailing behind them.

Harry tries to think of something to fill the silence as they make their way up the stairs, but he has no clue what to say in a moment like this. The floorboards creak under their steps.

Harry pushes Ron's door open and steps into the bright orange room, which is much harder to walk in with the third cot. Ron's set Harry cot a little closer to his own bed in order to push Malfoy's cot as far away on the opposite wall as possible. The morning sun beams through the window and makes the orange room look even brighter.

Malfoy goes to the far cot without being told. Harry catches a glimpse of his face, which is neutral like always, thankfully. The last thing he needs is Malfoy making fun of Ron's choice of decor.

"This is my room," Ron says, obviously, although Harry can't blame him. He has no idea what to say either. Ron waves his long arms around the room, as if a tour is needed, and then gestures behind him. "Bathrooms down the stairs a bit, to the right. In case you need it."

Harry sighs. Ron is trying, at least. Malfoy's is turned away from them, fiddling with something in his bag.

"Thanks," he says, and his voice is very low.

"Alright," Harry says, unable to take it much longer. "We can let you settle in, yeah? And you can meet us downstairs when you're—"

Harry's cut off by the sound of someone running loudly up the stairs. He looks behind him and sees Fred, his face angry and red, as he climbs the last few stairs and bursts into Ron's room, looking around quickly.

"So," he says. Harry winces at the harsh tone of his voice. His eyes are red, and Harry wonders if he slept at all last night. "You're here, huh?"

"Fred," Ron says, his tone unsure. Across the room, Malfoy turns slowly towards them. He looks paler than normal. Harry notices his hand raise briefly to his stomach, as almost in a defensive gesture, before it falls back to his side. Harry knows, from many summers and breaks spent at The Burrow, what it looks like when the Weasley brothers all fight with each other. He's seen Fred mad a lot, mad at Ron for nicking something out of his room, mad at Percy for telling on him to his mum, mad at Ginny for eating the last bit of cake. But Harry very rarely sees Fred mad like this. He thinks about Bill and how his face has healed up well, and everything's going okay, but how scared everyone was for the first month or so. He thinks about Malfoy's role in that and he's sure that's what Fred is thinking about too.

"Don't _Fred_ me, little brother. You sound like Mum. I don't know how you are just buying all of this."

"You—you _know_ the reason—"

"Yeah, sure I know," Fred makes a face. "I was at the Order meeting, I know." Fred takes a step towards Malfoy and Harry automatically does as well, sensing the beginning of a fight. He's not surprised, Fred looks exhausted and incredibly pissed. And it's not as though Malfoy is innocent, but Harry does want to stop things from escalating. He remembers that Malfoy doesn't have a wand and the most Gryfinndorish part of him isn't about to let Fred attack Malfoy unarmed.

"Fred—" Harry tries to say, taking a step in between the blonde and Fred. Fred turns angry eyes to Harry.

"No! No, Harry, I just don't understand. Especially you, of all people. You said you were there, when Dumbledore—"

"Fred, I'm serious," Harry snaps. "Not right now, please?"

"Look," he says, and a small bit of the anger leaves his voice. Fred sighs and rubs his eyes, before looking up at Malfoy, who, to his credit, stares evenly back. "I just want to say, I'm not buying it. And you can't just pretend like you didn't do—"

"—I'm not trying to pretend," Malfoy cuts in, and it shocks Fred into silence. "I'm just trying not to get murdered, okay? I'll stay out of the way."

Fred mumbles something like _yeah you fucking will_ , but doesn't respond. Harry looks back and forth between Malfoy and Fred, unsure of what to say next. He understands what Fred is saying, he really does, but he can't say he liked the way Fred so casually threw Dumbledore's death out, like Harry could possibly forget what it was like to watch him be blasted off that tower.

"I know this isn't easy," Harry says slowly. "But Dumbledore— Dumbledore spent the last minutes of his life trying to offer Malfoy a way out. And I'm not going to be the one who pretends I get to pick and choose who lives and who is Voldemort's next victim."

Fred blinks at Harry, exhaustion winning over the anger on his face.

"Shit, yeah. Sorry."

Harry shakes his head and turns to Ron, who's watching at Harry with an unreadable expression.

"Maybe we should go find Hermione," he says after a moment, and Harry is grateful for the distraction. The three of them head back down the stairs, leaving Malfoy sitting alone on his cot. Fred is about to slip back into his and George's room when he pauses, his hand on the wooden doorframe. Under his fingertips are etchings where Mrs. Weasley had scratched in the twin's heights over the years.

"I didn't mean to— I just don't want to lose anyone else," Fred says. His voice is solemn and his eyes serious, and it's such an unusual expression on Fred's face that it makes Harry uncomfortable. "I know George and Charlie; they're thinking the same things… but I'll try to talk to them. We can wait and see how it plays out, I guess."

"He's wandless," Ron says. "Otherwise, believe me, he wouldn't be staying in my room, that's for sure."

"Fair enough," Harry breathes out, and the three of them nod and each other before parting. As they continue to the kitchen, Ron mutters out,

"I can't blame Fred, you know."

"I know," Harry whispers. His tennis shoe hits a particularly squeaky section of the stairs. "I can't either."

The late afternoon, just before dinner, finds Ron, Harry, and Hermione together for the first time since breakfast. After delivering Malfoy to Ron's room, Ron was sent to finish folding the laundry, and Harry was sent out to pick apples from the back orchard, and then immediately put to peeling them for pies. It was nearing four o'clock before Hermione burst in the back door, sweating profusely and with jeans covered in dirt, to find Harry alone at the table surrounded by diced apples and a mountain of peels. She sits down next to him with a heavy sigh of "degnoming," to which Harry snorts and Hermione throws apples peels at him.

Harry's just filling her in on Malfoy's arrival, and Fred's subsequent outburst, when Ron clambers down the stairs and falls into the chair next to Harry. He looks sick.

"Are you alright?" Hermione questions immediately. Ron puts his head on the table and shakes his head no, with a low noise that sounds like a groan. "Ron?"

When Ron answers, he keeps his head down so his words are muffled against the table. Harry stops peeling and him and Hermione lean in closer to hear what he's saying.

"Mum had me stand outside the room, while Kingsley questioned Malfoy," he says. "She wanted me to make sure no one burst in and interrupted, but the walls are bloody thin and I heard most of it."

Harry winces, thinking about the abridged, non-veritaserum version of events that Malfoy told him, and imagined what it must have been like with Malfoy forced to share with unforgiving honesty.

"Well?" Hermione inquires, in her typical Hermione-like quest for the full story. "Is it true?"

"It's definitely all true," Ron says, and he lifts his head finally to look between the two of them. "Blimey, I've never been so thankful to not be Malfoy, to be honest."

Harry lets out a low whistle and Hermione swears under her breath.

"That's horrible," she says. "Truly. It— it makes it difficult, doesn't it? Thinking about all the dreadful things he did back in school, thinking he took the _mark_ and… and it all added up to that?"

"Sounds like his dad was the cause of most of it," Ron says darkly. "I can't pretend I don't still hate the git for what he did in school, but you'd have to be heartless to hear all of that and not, at least, I don't know— feel bad for him?"

"Hell, Weasley," comes a low drawl, and the trio's heads snap to the doorway. Malfoy is standing there, leaning against the doorframe as though this is completely normal for him, but there's a thin layer of sweat on his forehead and his skin is much paler than usual. He looks awful, and Harry grimaces, guessing that relieving everything that Voldemort did to him must have taken a toll on him. "I never thought I'd ever hear you say you pitied me."

There's an extremely uncomfortable silence around the table. Malfoy's looking anywhere but at the three of them, and Harry can't blame him.

"Don't get too full of yourself, Malfoy," Ron says eventually, his voice thick and his face bright red. "You're still a tosser."

Malfoy smirks and comes over to the table, reaching for an apple slice and popping it into his mouth. Harry rolls his eyes and puts a protective hand over the plate, before he remembers that Malfoy's been being questioned for the last few hours and probably missed lunch.

"Glad to hear it," Malfoy says, swallowing. There's a moment where he seems to be working up to something, before he speaks again. "I suppose I do owe you all some sort of apologies, don't I?"

Harry almost pinches himself, sure that he is dreaming. Draco Malfoy, apologizing? To Ron and Hermione? If someone had asked Harry months ago, which he thought was more likely, this or Voldemort conceding the war while wearing a purple wig, Harry would have had a hard time answering.

"It's fine," Ron says, shifting in his seat and ears pink. Hermione waves a hand at Malfoy, looking at her knees.

"Give it time," she says.

There seems to be nothing else to say. The three of them sit with Malfoy hovering near them, quietly and avoiding each other's eyes, for what feels like eternity, until Mrs. Weasley comes down and gives them all jobs for dinner. If she's surprised to see Malfoy there as well she doesn't show it, instead setting Harry and him to getting the table ready for dinner.

They move around the table in silence, the only sounds the scraping of chairs and clatter of silverware. By the time everyone comes to dinner, the silence has softened from an uncomfortable _what am I supposed to say_ to a simple lack of anything important to bring up. As dinner continues, the buzz around the table grows and conversation flows easily, until soon Malfoy is the only one who hasn't said anything. He sits and looks mostly down at his plate as the family around him discuss their day. Even Fred and George have come down to the table, and although everyone continues to watch Malfoy carefully in between bites, the twins keep telling their worsening ear jokes and Ginny continues to shoot sarcastic responses back. Mr. Weasley relates what is going on at the ministry, and Mrs. Weasley tries talking about the upcoming wedding to cheer everyone back up, but mostly just makes her children groan. It all feels strangely normal, and even though nothing about this summer is remotely normal, Harry finds himself thankful that there can still be another night like this.


	4. The Snitch

A/N: As always, I just want to clarify that I'm not JKR (what a shock, I know) and that any dialogue that seems similar to the book is probably because those are moments from the book I'm keeping, and not because I'm trying to pretend I own Harry Potter. No one would trust me with that responsibility. :D

Also, sorry for the short chapter! It felt like a sensible place to end, but it's a bit shorter than the rest, so I'm sorry for that!

Thanks again for reading!

Mrs. Weasley seems to be determined to keep Ron, Harry, and Hermione apart. Ron says it's because she's trying to get them to stay and not run off doing whatever insane task they thought Dumbledore left to them (her words, apparently). Which is, of course, not going to stop the trio from leaving, but instead just makes it harder for them to prepare. Harry still feels guilty about the two of them coming with, but after seeing the not-Ron ghoul in the attic and hearing the sacrifices Hermione has made to protect her parents, Harry has decided to keep his guilt to himself.

Or at least to keep it quieter than before. Because he also feels incredibly guilty about the risks the Weasleys are taking in general, just to have Harry here for the summer. He spends one afternoon going over The Burrow's protections for the wedding with Bill, and Harry can't help the flood of guilt that twists his gut. He moves through The Burrow, this wonderful place that he loves, with apologies on the tip of his tongue. He finds Mrs. Weasley making lunch in the kitchen and goes to her, and although he's not sure what exactly he can say to make up for everything, he tries. He doesn't get far before he's met with Mrs. Weasley's silencing hand and kind eyes, telling him "not to worry, of course". Harry lets himself bask in the warmth of her expression and the feeling of being around those who truly care about him, just for a moment, before he disappears into the back yard to help Ron weed the garden.

There's also the added complication of Draco Malfoy, who mostly sits on his cot in Ron's room and pours over books, much like he did in Privet Drive. He occasionally leaves to wander the garden or, very surprisingly, offer to feed the chickens, but his continuous presence has made it difficult for the trio to sneak into Ron's room and discuss their upcoming Horcrux hunt. So far, they have ignored any conversation that would even remotely relate to what Ron overheard during Malfoy's talk to Kingsley. Ron sometimes turns slightly green when he looks at Malfoy, and Mrs. Weasley usually tries to force him to eat an extra helping of food than she offers to everyone else, but other than that, everyone seems to avoid talking to Malfoy about anything more complicated than "pass the butter", and Malfoy seems just fine following suit.

Almost just fine, Harry has had to concede. Because although time is moving on at The Burrow, although Moody's death is still gut wrenching to think about, although the busy wedding planning is pushing thoughts of the war out of mostly out of everyone's minds, Harry finds himself watching Malfoy. It's eerily similar to this last year, except this time Harry knows exactly what Malfoy is up to. It's not necessarily pity that keeps him watching, although pity is definitely a part of it, but more a strange mixture of habit and something else that Harry can't name. He watches Malfoy's pallor and notices which foods seem to make him feel sick, he notices when it's early morning and Malfoy quietly runs out of the bedroom. He sees the expression Malfoy gives Harry when he catches him staring: one of annoyance but also of defiance, as though Malfoy is daring Harry to say out loud the things everyone is thinking. It's how Harry has a slight feeling that ignoring everything that happened with Malfoy might not be the best strategy, although it's not quite enough to inspire Harry to act any differently.

There's been two times already, for example, where the trio finally manage to slip away from the watchful eyes of Mrs. Weasley long enough to talk about their upcoming journey, when Malfoy enters Ron's tiny bedroom and the three of them quickly fall silent and stare back at him, unmoving. Both those times Hermione has been in the middle of trying to explain how one destroys a horcrux, so Harry tells himself that it's fair they have gone so silent. After all, it's not like they can share their information about horcruxes with Malfoy of all people, when they haven't even told the Order what they'll be up to this upcoming school year. However, Harry has had to grimace slightly at the awkwardness of each of Malfoy's interruptions. The first time caused Hermione to slam her book shut so fast that she shut it on her finger, and the second she dropped it from her spot on the bed onto Ron's head, who cursed loudly but clamped his mouth shut once he saw the blonde. Malfoy, for his part, has given them strange look and rolled his eyes each time, but so far has said nothing.

It's moments like these when Harry tries to tell himself that the Weasleys aren't the only ones keeping the silence. It's not an entirely fair thought, but it smooths over some of the unease Harry has with the Don't Talk About Malfoy strategy that has taken over The Burrow. The only time Malfoy has really said anything to Ron and Harry, to be honest, is during the morning when the three are just waking up and moving around the room getting ready. It's strangely similar to Harry's dorm room at Hogwarts, the easy rise and fall in conversation as everyone gets moving for the day. Not to say that Malfoy's comments are as friendly or in any way similar, really, to Dean or Neville's. Still, hearing Malfoy say "shit, it's hot in here" as he makes his cot in the morning and having Ron snort back "fucking sweating all night", without Malfoy snapping any sarcastic or rude remark back, is quite unexpected for Harry. He tries to remind himself that this whole situation is temporary, but it's almost stranger to think about Malfoy occupying this tiny bedroom, hiding in the attic whenever anyone stops by to check on the Weasleys, while Ron and Harry disappear to Merlin knows where. So Harry just adds that to the list of things he doesn't let himself think about.

And then, after all that, there's also Ginny. Ginny, who is both a not entirely unexpected complication to the whole Trio Finding Alone Time and surprisingly still a complication in the whole We Don't Completely Hate Malfoy now? aspect of The Burrow as well. Ginny has been giving Harry weird looks each time she sees him watching Malfoy, sending him long glances when he passes Malfoy the butter at meals, and dropping mumbled hints that she still doesn't fully trust the blonde, or forgive him. Which Harry fully believes she has every right to say, but it still makes him annoyed in a way he doesn't know how to explain and doesn't want to think about. Instead of talking about it with her, as Hermione lectures Harry to do in a low mutter one evening, the two of them instead spend most of their time making eye contact and blushing, or starting conversations that fizzle out into discussions about the weather. It's frustrating and strange, and Harry can't seem to wrap his head around the idea of Ginny not just being Ron's sister, or his girlfriend, but somehow his ex as well.

When Harry's birthday arrives then, it's a welcome distraction. They all gather outside for Harry's birthday dinner and Harry reveals in the simplicity of enjoying a meal with people he loves. He uses magic for little things, like summoning the salt to himself and nearly spilling half of it, eliciting eye rolls from most of the older wizards at the table and a strange look of longing as Malfoy stares at Harry's wand that makes Harry feel guilty.

Ron is the first to notice the minister approaching, and when he points out the figure approaching their dinner table, Harry can't ignore the slight feeling of excitement that sparks inside him, despite all the other emotions he has connected to the sight of Scrimgeour. When Scrimgeour tells them he's there to deliver the items Dumbledore left in his will, it provides Harry with a semblance of hope for life continuing after the Burrow. Probably the most stressful thing of all, Harry decides, when he allows himself to think about it, is not his awkward conversations with Ginny, or dodging Mrs. Weasley, or rooming with Draco Malfoy, but instead realizing that Harry has no idea where to begin a horcrux hunt. It would immobilize him, if he thought about it too much.

But thinking that Dumbledore might have something else to share with Harry, that is something hopeful.

Once the minister leaves, Harry, Ron, and Hermione take the inherited gifts up to Ron's room in an excited rush, chatting in fast undertones to each other about the possibilities of some sort of _direction_.

"I really thought that snitch was going to do something when you grabbed it, Harry," Hermione says in a rush, with a mixture of disappointment and relief. In front of her, Ron pushes open his bedroom door and crosses to his bed. He sits down heavily and Hermione joins him without looking up from her new copy of Tales of Beedle the Bard.

"Well, I was going to try very hard in front of Scrimgeour, was I?" Harry says back, entering the room with his eyes locked on the snitch. He sits down on his cot, his head spinning.

"What do you—" Hermione begins, but Ron cuts her off with a noisy cough. Harry looks up quickly to Ron, who's staring pointedly over at Malfoy. Harry hadn't noticed him, and judging by the looks on her face, Hermione hadn't either. He's not surprised to see that he's already slipped back up here from dinner; Harry supposes it's become the routine for Malfoy over the last week.

Malfoy looks up, his face neutral as he gazes back at them. In his lap is the same old potions book he's been reading for the last few days, although it appears he only has a chapter or so left at this point.

"Would you like me to leave?" He drawls, his voice toneless. Half of Harry says yes, he would very much like Malfoy to leave, while the other half winces slightly, realizing how incredibly rude that would be.

"No, it's fine." Surprisingly it Ron who answers, and Harry can't help but be shocked. Harry meets Hermione's eyes and they exchange a surprised glance, both thinking the same thing: politeness wasn't usually Ron's strong suit. Ron, for his part, just shrugs and runs his fingers over the deluminator. "You were in here first."

It hits Harry almost immediately, thinking about how different it must have been for Ron growing up with six other siblings than it must have been for Harry and Hermione, when it came to everyday squabbles and having to share a space. Ron's ears are pink as he avoids looking at them. Harry stops himself from smiling at his friend just in time, instead looking over at Malfoy to see a surprised look pass over his face. It's quickly pushed off, and Malfoy nods shortly to Ron and goes back to his book with an intense focus that Harry assumes is mostly put on.

The three of them look at each other and try to decide what to do. Harry, usually being the first to act in moments like these and still enjoying in the fact that he's finally seventeen and can actually do magic, casts a quick _muffliato._ Ron looks a little relieved and Hermione nods.

"Good thinking," she says. She pushes her hair behind her shoulders and leans forward. "So, what did you mean, you weren't trying that hard?"

"Well," Harry says, holding the snitch up to his eye level. "I didn't catch my first snitch, did I?"

Ron gapes at Harry, nodding excitedly, comprehension dawning on his face. Hermione looks back and forth between them, still appearing confused.

"That's the one he nearly swallowed," Ron says, and Hermione makes a soft _oh_ noise. Harry nods, and takes a moment to appreciate how weird this probably looks to Malfoy, before pressing the snitch to his lips.

He holds it there for a moment, determinedly not looking in the corner where Malfoy's cot is despite almost being able to _feel_ him watching them, before turning it over in his hands. There's a moment where he's afraid he's about to be disappointed, when nothing happens and he worries that his hope in Dumbledore was unfounded—

"There!" Hermione says, pointing at the bottom of the snitch and Harry quickly turns the snitch over to see the thin slanted writing across the snitch. _I open at the close_.

"I open at the close," Harry reads slowly. He looks up to Ron and Hermione, who shake their heads at him, looking as confused as he felt. "I open at the close— what does that mean?"

"I don't know," Hermione says, and she wrings her hands in her lap, the way she always does when she doesn't know something. "Is it anything—"

"Not to interrupt," Malfoy snaps from across the room. The three of them startle, and Harry ends the spell quickly and looks over at him. Malfoy looks annoyed, but there's also a green tinge back to his face that Harry didn't notice until now. "But that buzzing noise is driving me mad."

"Sorry," Harry says. He had forgotten the dull muffled sound that the spell caused, mostly because they've never been caught out for it before. "Most people don't notice."

Malfoy snorts. "How could they not? It's extremely annoying."

Hermione looks at him skeptically, but then there's a moment of clarity that dawns on her face. It's a look Harry's quite used to.

"Oh, it's the pregnancy, isn't it?" She says, and she's speaking slowly, as if this is an intellectual matter and not something severely private. Harry and Ron look at each other with wide eyes, and Ron glances at Hermione as though she's grown another head. Harry is very aware that this is the first time anyone's said anything to Malfoy about the fact that there's a freaking baby growing inside of him. On the cot across the room, Malfoy freezes, the book in his hands falling forward slightly. "My aunt, she always said being pregnant made her hearing really sensitive."

Malfoy just stares at Hermione, and when she glances at Ron and Harry to find them staring as well, her cheeks flush and she looks awkwardly at her hands, before exhaling in a loud Hermioneish _huff_.

"Well," she starts, speaking much quicker now, "it's not like it's going to do any good to ignore it, does it? Or to make a big deal out of it every time it's mentioned. I'm sure you don't like that either, do you Malfoy?"

Harry has to admit she has a point. He thinks the only thing that would be worse than Voldemort making him drink a pregnancy potion, would be the nine months of people staring at him but not just talking about the bloody obvious. Malfoy wrinkles his nose at Hermione, and looks as though he's about to snap at her, before he deflates, leaning back against the wall and pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

"That noise makes me nauseous," he admits, ignoring the question. Hermione nods anyway, as though it's the most logical thing she's heard all day. "If you could at least cast a silencing charm, like anyone normal would."

"Understandable," she says.

Ron opens his mouth as though to say something, but then closes it again. He looks stunned and confused, and Harry can't blame him for that. He's sure there's more than a bit of apprehension showing on his own face. He tries to shake himself and focus on the conversation they were having. Now that he knows the snitch is—Harry is severely disappointed to realize— very useless, or at best very cryptic, he knows there's not much at risk by having this conversation in front of Malfoy. Another piece of him, a small voice at the back of his head that's been perking up over the last few days, has been considering the idea that Malfoy may actually be able to give them some direction when it comes to horcruxes. Malfoy, at least, knows some of Voldemort's plans, or maybe even about areas that Voldemort was protecting, things he might have mentioned….

It was, unfortunately, becoming clearer to Harry that he was going to have to have another conversation with Malfoy about Voldemort. At some point.

"Anyway," he says quietly, and all three heads turn to look at him. Even though he's speaking softly, his voice sounds loud in the hush that had fallen over the room. Outside, the sun is beginning to set and casting a warm glow about the orange bedroom. Hermione raises her wand, to cast a silencing charm Harry supposes, but Harry just shakes his head.

"It's fine," he says. Because Malfoy isn't going anywhere, Harry figures. And there's no reason to hide every single thing they talk about from the blonde.

Malfoy's eyes narrow at Harry, as though he's expecting a trick or something, although Harry isn't entirely sure why. He runs a hand through his hair.

"Look, we have no idea what this means," Harry says, exasperated. He holds up the snitch and three pairs of eyes look at it: Ron and Hermione with disappointment, and Malfoy with confusion. "So there's no point in a silencing charm, is there?"

Harry looks at Hermione when he says this, because there's still a small part of him that's holding onto hope that she can logic it out. She bites her lip and stares at him for a moment, before shaking her head.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she says. She sounds frustrated. "I don't know."

"Great," Ron says. He lays back on his cot and rubs his eyes. Harry wonders if part of the reason Ron does this is because it makes it easier to ignore the fourth person in the room. "Just another bloody thing we don't know."

Harry shrugs and slips the snitch into his bag, trying not to let his reaction to Ron's comment show on his face. He can't help but feel as though he's letting his two best friends down. He's sure there was some part of them that thought he had more information to go on. If he thought it would help, he would offer again that they didn't have to follow them.

Malfoy is watching Harry curiously from his cot. The expression is without malice, and it makes Malfoy's face look much softer than normal in a way that just makes Harry feel more unsettled. He tries to avoid looking at him.

Surprisingly though, Malfoy is the next one to speak.

"You're not going back to Hogwarts next year, are you?" He says, mostly to Ron. Harry feels like it's pretty obvious that neither him nor Hermione can go back, but he realizes that they haven't discussed their plans in front of Malfoy at all and the blonde is probably just curious. "Or staying here?"

The trio looks at each other, just for a split second.

"No," Harry answers. "No, we're not."

Malfoy blinks back at them.

"I know it's obvious that you're not going back to Hogwarts. I figured," he says. In the quiet room, in his hushed tones, his voice loses his drawl and Harry is transported back to the Malfoy that first came to him for help. Harry realizes that this quieter and softer Malfoy is looking like a more and more permanent change. "I'm surprised your mother isn't making you all stay here, Weasley."

"She's trying," Ron mutters. Harry narrows his eyes slightly at Malfoy, trying to tell if the bit of disappointment he's seeing there is imagined or not. Him and Ron probably the only people Malfoy exchanges words with at all most days, but it still seems overwhelming strange that he would be disappointed in them leaving. Unless, maybe he really was that lonely.

That thought strikes Harry somewhere uncomfortably familiar, as he's reminded of the first ten years of his life and subsequent summers.

"We have— we have something we have to do," Harry shares, because fuck it, he's feeling bad for the blonde again. Malfoy blinks back at Harry, and Harry can almost see him thinking.

"You're not actually—" Malfoy begins, before breaking off suddenly. He looks decidedly green, and it's what keeps Harry from prompting him. Not actually what? The Chosen One? Going to kill Voldemort? Thinking he'll survive all of this?

Malfoy mutters something about the bathroom and stands up quickly, before immediately collapsing. It's so sudden and immediately takes them out of the tense conversation. The trio look at each other with wide eyes before hurrying to him and crouching around him. Harry's the first there, and he realizes with relief that Malfoy's eyes are opening and he's already pushing them away from him. Harry doesn't budge, because fuck Malfoy if he thinks he's going to die or something here, in the middle of Ron's bedroom.

"I'm fine," Malfoy mumbles, and the greenness on his face is tinged with pink. Up close, Harry can see how clammy Malfoy looks. "I just stood up too fast."

"Bollocks," Ron snaps. Hermione shushes him. She hesitates, biting her lip, before holding the back of her hand up to Malfoy's forehead. The blonde doesn't flinch, but he closes his eyes as though he wishes the ground could just swallow him whole.

"You don't feel warm," she concludes, and she awkwardly drops her hand down. Harry searches Malfoy's face, looking for the truth. Malfoy mostly just looks embarrassed, and Harry can't blame him.

"I'm fine," he presses, and he sits up slowly, leaning against the cot from the floor. "And I still need to use the bathroom, so if you could all give me some space—"

"Have you been taking your potions?" Harry questions, and he feels Ron and Hermione look at him, and he figures that they didn't realize Malfoy even had them.

"Not today," Malfoy says. He doesn't look in Harry's eyes. "I'm just feeling more tired than usual. I forgot them downstairs."

Harry takes a moment to appreciate how strange this is, Malfoy telling them about how _he's feeling_ , but there's a part of Harry that recognizes Malfoy told _Harry_ he was tired, and seemed to ignore Ron and Hermione. He wishes he knew what it was about him that Malfoy felt, if not comfortable, at least okay with coming to Harry for all of these problems.

Harry stands up quickly, deciding he needs some air.

"I'll go get them," he declares. "You shouldn't be skipping them."

"Okay," Malfoy says warily, but Harry thinks that he looks a little relieved. For some reason, this makes Harry feel a tiny bit satisfied with himself. After a moment of horror, Harry crosses the room quickly to make a break for it.

"By the fireplace, yeah?" He says, thinking of the last place he saw Malfoy in the living room. He leaves and shuts the door before he hears Malfoy's response and Hermione's question.

"How did—"

"What potions?"

Hurrying down the stairs, he breathes deeply and wishes, not for the first time, that his life could be a little less weird. He only makes it to the first landing, however, before he's interrupted.

"Harry?"

Ginny's standing in front of him, and Harry stops breathing at the look on her face. Gone is the uneasy nervousness that the two of them have carried around each other for the past weeks. It's replaced by the bold expression Harry normally equates to Ginny. Her hair is tied back in a long braid and Harry knows that she looks beautiful.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" She asks, and Harry thinks about Malfoy and knows that the blonde can probably wait a minute. Harry knows that he owes Ginny at least a moment, whatever she has worked up to say to him. Harry wonders if she's finally going to chew him out for abandoning her.

"Sure," he says, and he goes awkwardly into her room. He realizes that he's never been in here before, and glances around the bright room with interest. It's so incredibly _Ginny_ that it makes his heart ache, and Harry realizes in that moment that Ginny is a part of a life after the war that Harry will most likely never see.

"I was trying to think of what to get you for your birthday," she says, and Harry tries to quickly interject with a "you didn't have to get me anything", but she silences him with a look. He watches her and she plays with the end of her braid in her fingers. "But I could think of anything to get you. For your trip, I mean."

"There's nothing I really need," Harry says, slowly. He's unsure of where this is going and it makes him feel off guard. Ginny, however, nods as though his comment was exactly her point.

"I know," she says. She takes a deep breath before pushing forward. Her hands fall to her sides and she takes a small step forward, towards Harry. "So I thought I'd give you something to remember me by, you know, in case you meet any veelas while you're out there—"

"I don't think there's going to be much opportunity for dating," he says, and Ginny smiles and steps even closer to him, and he realizes that she's about to kiss him. And for some reason all her can think about is the fact that his stomach, which was once filled with butterflies for her, is now just filled with fear for the future, terror that Voldemort will just slaughter this family that he loves, and the lingering thought that a pregnant Draco Malfoy was upstairs waiting on Harry of all people to grab his potions, because Harry had told him he would. Without thinking, Harry puts a hand on Ginny's shoulder to stop her, and her eyes fill with shock and embarrassment almost immediately. Harry ducks his head, sucking in a breath and trying to mumble out some sort of an apology, or explanation, but nothing sounds right.

Her eyes, which usually stay dry even in the toughest of moments, look suspiciously wet and Harry's heart seems to break, but he knows he can't take back that flicker of doubt he showed. At least not right now. Unbidden, an image of an older Ginny marrying a tall dark stranger pops into his mind and he feels desperate and insanely sad for this future that he is giving up. Or maybe is just realizing, now, how that future never belonged to him in the first place.

"I'm sorry, Ginny," he says, and his voice cracks. "I just—"

"Don't," she says, and her voice shakes as well. "I understand."

Harry nods, and she turns to the window. He can hear her sniffling, and he bolts out of the room like a coward. Filled with dread, he grabs the potions as quickly as possible and sprints back up the stairs to Ron's room.


	5. The Patronus

The early morning of the wedding, Harry wakes before the sun comes up. He has a lingering memory of a dream about a man he doesn't know, a man with the name Gregorovitch who is being hunted. Voldemort's desire to find him clouds Harry's thoughts. He blinks and tries to focus on the ceiling above him, reminding himself where he is and who he is with slow, smooth breaths. The dream slowly ebbs away, and Harry's left staring through the darkness of the room with a feeling that he's missing something obvious. He's completely exhausted, but despite it he lays there awake, his mind is reeling.

He thinks about how it's just tomorrow, just one more day at The Burrow, before the three of them plan to leave. Everyone seems to know that's what's going to happen, even if no one will talk about it. With Fleur's family being here, the sole focus on The Burrow has been on the wedding, not on the trio's impending departure. Harry has been kept so busy helping Mrs. Weasley that he's barely had time to think about it himself.

But now, just hours into the morning and alone with only his thoughts and Ron's gentle snores, Harry can't stop thinking about it. There's a tight knot in his chest and he knows he's not about to fall back asleep anytime soon. The warm sticky summer air drifts in through a small open window above Ron and he feels as though he is suffocating.

Climbing as quietly as possible out of his cot, Harry slips on a sweatshirt and pads lightly down the stairs, avoiding where he can the squeakiest steps.

Outside, he makes his way to the edge of the wards, where him, Ron, and Hermione sat the night they had lost Moody. Under his bare feet, there's dew on the grass that makes him shiver. He goes ahead and sits down on the grass anyway, not caring.

Above him, the sky is cloudy and dark. There's a small sliver of a moon that sometimes passes through the clouds, but it doesn't provide Harry much light at all. He breathes the early morning air in and let's it fill his lungs. He's oddly aware of being alive in this moment and he tries to appreciate it and savor it. He fails almost immediately, his mind drifting ahead to his plans and what he needs to do.

He doesn't know how long he sits there, lost in his thoughts, before the sound of footsteps behind him makes him jump. He twists and whips out his wand, even though he knows that he's within the wards of The Burrow.

Malfoy's standing there in the dark. He stops abruptly when Harry turns towards him. Harry can almost make out one pale blonde eyebrow raised. Malfoy, it seems, didn't forget his shoes, and he's wrapped in the same black cloak he showed up in at the Dursleys.

"Oh," Harry says, and his voice seems very loud in the night air. "It's you. What are you doing out here?"

"I thought you probably missed pointing your wand at me," Malfoy drawls, and Harry rolls his eyes but he tucks his wand away. Malfoy comes closer and stands near Harry, not looking at him but instead looking out into the prairie land surrounding them. Harry feels awkward now, sitting there in the grass while Malfoy stands next to him wrapped in a grand cloak, but Harry's too stubborn to stand up. And plus, his pants are completely soaked through with dew, at this point, and there's no way he's letting Malfoy make any smart remarks about it.

"Oh ha," he says, resolving to not look at the blonde either. He hears Malfoy sigh slightly, and then is shocked when he lowers himself to sit beside Harry. He forces his eyes forward but is completely confused.

"Standing is exhausting," he hears Malfoy mutter, and Harry wants to make a comment about how Malfoy isn't even showing yet and acts like he's eight months pregnant instead of two, but instead Harry just gapes and manages to force out a "the grass is wet," to which Malfoy sighs again but doesn't say anything.

Harry's reminded of several somber evenings at the Dursleys, where the two of them spent most of the night in silence, trying to pretend the other wasn't there. He feels like he's much more aware of Malfoy's mood swings now, and it seems that Malfoy is settled on Silent Introspective Malfoy for the moment.

"Why are you out here?" He asks, because he honestly doesn't know. He supposes that nothing should really shock him when it comes to Malfoy anymore, but sitting together outside at three in the bloody morning bring a new definition to surreal.

Malfoy doesn't respond right away. When he does, it's with an air of nonchalance that Harry has trouble believing.

"I was awake when you got up. You were gone for a while."

"So...you followed me?"

Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Malfoy turn his head towards him and shoot him a look.

"I figured that if you disappeared or something, I would probably be the first suspect, wouldn't I?"

Harry tilts his head to concede the point, muttering "bloody self-preserving Slytherin" under his breath. He feels a flicker of guilt, too, thinking the panic that Ron would have felt if he was the one to wake up and notice Harry missing.

"I could have been down here with Ginny," he says to distract himself, and Malfoy snorts.

"Yeah, sure. And what a lovely reunion of awkward exs that would have been."

"I didn't realize you noticed—"

"I'd have to be blind not to notice, Potter. You two have been dancing around each other all week." Malfoy lays back and looks up at the sky. Harry's about to make a comment about him ruining his cloak, before he speaks again. "I figured you'd gone off alone."

Harry shakes his head. "Ron and Hermione would kill me, if I did."

There's a pause, and Harry almost doesn't think Malfoy's going to respond.

"Yes, they probably would," he says finally, slowly, and there's a tinge of sadness and something else Harry can't place in his voice. It sounds a little like loneliness. Harry doesn't know how to respond. He looks at his hands and picks at a hangnail.

"Are you ready for the wedding tomorrow?" Harry casts out, because he's sitting here having a civil conversation with Draco Malfoy and it's not his first, so he figures changing the topic to something less tense is probably a good idea. A small voice in the back of Harry's head is telling him that he's going soft and getting used to the git. Harry ignores it.

Malfoy snorts. He sits back up and stretches out long arms in front of him. His sleeves pull back to expose pale wrists and Harry finds himself watching.

"They're going to spell my hair _red_ ," Malfoy says, and he sounds so truly horrified that Harry can't help but laugh.

"Spell it?" He says, in between laughs. "How come I have to take polyjuice?"

Malfoy sends Harry his patented "you're an insufferable idiot" look.

"You really never did pay attention in potions, did you?" Harry glares at the prairie in front of him, wondering how someone can be sitting in wet grass at three in the morning and still sounds so condescending. "There are times you can't take polyjuice. Being pregnant is one of them."

Harry winces.

"Yeah, I suppose that wouldn't go well," he says. He remembers Hermione's words, and the question is out before he can completely think it through. "Is it really better, you think, to just talk about it like its normal?"

Harry still doesn't want to look at Malfoy, but the blonde is silent beside him for a long second, so Harry gives in a takes a quick peek. Malfoy's face is carefully neutral, but he seems to be chewing his lip ever so slightly.

"Yes," he says, finally. "I think it is."

"I suppose that makes sense," Harry says slowly. He knows what it's like to get attention for something he had no control over, doesn't he? "I can understand wanting people to just focus on you, and not something that happened to you. Or is happening to you, I guess."

Malfoy closes his eyes and tilts his head back to the sky.

"I'm sure you understand," he says, but it's without any bite, "famous Harry Potter has never enjoyed any attention."

Maybe if Malfoy sounded more like himself, maybe if it wasn't the middle of the night, maybe if they were back at Hogwarts and Ron was at Harry's side, he would have snapped back at that comment. But right now Harry just sighs heavily, decides to be the bigger person and not rise to the bait.

He stands up slowly, realizing his leg has gone numb.

"I'm going to try to sleep, for another hour at least," he says, and if Malfoy is surprised by the lack of an argument he doesn't let on. "You coming?"

Malfoy nods, stands up much quicker than Harry and with characteristic grace. Harry can't help but roll his eyes.

They're about to walk in The Burrow, when Harry realizes that just because he's being the bigger person doesn't mean he can't get the last word in.

"To be honest, it is hard to ignore my fame," Harry says, as Malfoy steps into the kitchen and props the door open behind him, "you know, when people are basically stalking me at all hours of the night."

Malfoy nearly shuts the door in Harry's face, but he slips in quickly. Grinning, he manages to take the staircase quietly and two steps at a time, and he goes to bed feeling much lighter than when he left it.

The wedding is beautiful and the food is good. There's lots of dancing, and Harry tries to fade into the background. He spends a third of his time glancing at Ginny (who looks quite beautiful in her pale gold dress) and away quickly, a third discussing Dumbledore after running into a conversation between Elphais Doge and Ron's Aunt Muriel (a conversation which leaves a knot in his stomach), and the rest of his time checking on Malfoy, who's sitting in a corner and looking like a snobby, uncomfortable Weasley (which is probably the most unsettling). Harry's keeping an eye on him, which is slightly because of habit but also because Mr. Weasley asked him to, so Harry figures he doesn't need to feel like he's being weird about it.

Ron and Hermione are nearby, Harry thinks, but he can't see them. He hopes they're having fun and dancing, instead of fighting over Victor Krum. Maybe it's weird that he knows they're nearby, but he's sure he can sense them, and it might be his ever growing sense of dread or lingering worries that makes him hyper-aware of their presence. Something, not entirely conscious, makes him feel as though he needs to be able to find them and get to them in an instant, in case anything would happen.

From his chair he can see the beaming bride and groom, dancing in circles around each other in a more graceful way than Harry can ever imagine doing himself, and his chest feels thick and heavy. Everyone looks happy, in fact, and many people are coupled up and looking quite in love. He glances over at Ginny, once more. She seems deeply engaged in conversation with Luna, and Harry looks away quickly. This time, when Harry thinks of Ginny's future wedding, he thinks about the reception, and he knows it'll look something like all of this. Harry wonders if he'll even be there to see it.

The only person who looks more of a downer about this whole thing than Harry's feeling is Malfoy, who's staring into an empty glass of butterbeer and glancing every so often at the watch on his wrist, as though counting down the minutes until he could disappear into The Burrow without anyone noticing he was gone. There have also been a few moments where Malfoy has looked back up at Harry, his gray eyes and raised eyebrow almost a challenge, although Harry's no longer sure what the challenge is. They've locked eyes almost three times, holding the contact for longer than is probably sane to do so, neither of them wanting to back down. The whole thing gives Harry a tight, unsettled feeling in his stomach that layers with his sense of unease until he feels nothing but confused.

Lost in his thoughts, he startles when Hermione appears suddenly next to him. She sits down in the chair beside him. She looks happy, and there's a pink flush to her cheeks that looks as though she's been dancing. Harry smirks at her but says nothing. She just rolls her eyes in response, but if anything, her cheeks get a little more pink.

"Ron's gone to find some butterbeer," she says. It's in the moment between these

words and Harry's almost muttered back "brilliant" that many things happen at once.

A lynx patronus appears in the middle of the dance floor, making several people jump and Mrs. Weasley nearly fall over. Mr. Weasley catches her with one arm around her middle, and he pulls her closer to him as the patronus delivers its message in Kingsley's deep voice to a suddenly silent crowd:

 _"The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."_

There's a very still moment before the tent falls into chaos. Hermione's hand on Harry's forearm is tight. Her fingernails dig into his skin but he almost doesn't even feel it. Around him, the sounds of laughter and music have shifted into screams and cracks of apparition as people flee for home. Harry's scanning the crowd for Ron and he knows Hermione is too, when there are more loud noises and suddenly red flashes of light are sailing through the tent and Harry knows the protective enchantments around The Burrow have fallen. His heart pounding, he pulls out his wand and sends a curse towards a hooded figure in the corner of the tent, who was pointing his wand at Ginny. Harry tries to pull out of Hermione's grip to run to her, but Hermione only squeezes tighter, her yells for Ron growing louder.

Harry blinks as a spell flies past his ear. He fires a series of stunning spells behind him, pulling Hermione down into a crouching pose as they run through the tent full of Order members, all with wands out.

"Ron!" Hermione yells, and then Harry sees him, and he sees Ron reach toward them and grab onto Hermione's arm at the same time Harry feels someone latch onto his wrist—

And then the whole world is being squeezed together and Harry can't breathe. They land sudden and hard in front of an alley facing a sidewalk of a very busy muggle street. The street lights burn into Harry's eyes and he's extremely disoriented, until he collects a single thought that someone followed them, grabbed onto him…. Turning sharply, Harry points his wand into the spell-altered but still mostly right face of Draco Malfoy. Most of the red tinge to his hair has faded, and slightly darker than normal blonde pieces of hair are falling into his eyes. Harry stares at him, heart still pounding, before sighing in frustration.

"Fuck, Malfoy. Will you stop sneaking up on me?"

"Uh, Hermione," comes Ron's voice at nearly the same time. "Where are we? And why did you side-a-long Malfoy?"

Hermione's eyes are wide as she glances at Malfoy, and she shakes her head.

"I didn't know he was there. It's amazing I didn't splinch one of you— That was incredibly dangerous Malfoy," she says, and her tone lacks the reprimand it would normally have in a time like this. Harry figures her brain is still trying to catch up with it all. "Especially in your condition."

"My _condition_ doesn't affect apparition for months still," Malfoy spits.

"Why the fuck are you—" Ron begins, but a group of about five loud muggle teens push past and gape at them, snickering loudly at the three boys' dress robes. Ron's ears go pink and he seems like he's about to yell at them instead of Malfoy. Hermione shushes him and places a hand on Harry and Ron's shoulders, pushing them backwards further into the alley.

"You three need to change," she says.

"Where _are_ we?" Malfoy says, and although he's just repeating Ron's question, Ron just rolls his eyes at the blonde.

"Tottenham Court Road," Hermione says, once Malfoy comes closer to them. She glances around before opening up the beaded bag in her hands and peering into it. "It's a muggle street— I came here with my parents once. I don't know what made me think of it… but I guess it's somewhere they won't expect us to be."

"I suppose," Ron says, his eyes still longing on the sidewalk in front of the alley. "But don't you feel, I don't know… a little exposed?"

"It could be worse," she says, but her tone is anxious and she's biting her lip. "You guys need to get out of those robes."

"Oh, okay," Ron says, "I'll just pull on my spare trousers out of my—"

Hermione silences him with a look, although Harry thinks that Ron has a valid point. Bewildered, he watches as Hermione pulls three pairs of jeans, and then three shirts, out of her tiny beaded bag. She hands them out, and Malfoy meets Harry's eyes as Hermione passes him a red shirt that Harry is very confident belongs to him and not Malfoy. He sees the confusion he feels reflected back at him in Malfoy's eyes, and it's probably the first look time they've shared a look like this ever.

"How did—" Harry begins, reaching out to grab the proffered shirt, but Hermione waves a hand at him.

"I've had the essentials packed for weeks," she says, "just in case. It's an undetectable extension charm. I just had a feeling… I grabbed your knapsack too, Harry."

Amazed, Harry takes the bag from her.

"You're incredible, you know that Hermione?" he says, and Hermione gives him a small smile.

"I've been told. Now get your cloak on, Harry."

The three boys change quickly and Harry throws his invisibility cloak over himself. He hears Malfoy swear under his breath as he does this, and Harry thinks he hears a muttered "well that explains a lot" as well.

"What about him?" Ron says, pulling his t-shirt over his head and gesturing to Malfoy.

Hermione suddenly looks stricken.

"Your potions—"

"I have them," Malfoy interrupts, slipping his small bag from the robes at his feet. He hesitates for a moment, before handing it to Hermione, who drops it into her bag with a surprised expression.

"He's not staying with us, though," Ron says, quickly. "You know that, right Malfoy?"

Malfoy and Hermione open their mouths at the same time and Harry knows that this is not the right place to have this conversation. He waves a hand at the three of them, and their eyes all snap to his.

"Not here, okay?" He sounds tired, he knows it, and he thinks he's beginning to lose some of the adrenaline. He's left now with nothing to distract him from the tight ball of fear in his stomach, thinking about all the people still fighting at The Burrow. "We need to find somewhere else, to figure out what to do next. Somewhere safe, first."

The three nods their heads, but as Malfoy turns to walk back towards the road, she throws her hand out to stop him.

"The charms are wearing off," she says, her voice nearly a whisper. "You should go with Harry, under the cloak."

Harry's very glad that Hermione is someone who thinks about these things, as he realizes belatedly that marching through the streets of London next to an on-the-run Death Eater probably wouldn't be their best idea. Judging by the look on Ron's face, Harry's not alone in thinking this.

Malfoy looks over his shoulder at what he must think is where Harry is. He looks slightly apprehensive, and Harry rolls his eyes before his lifts a side of the cloak and beckons Malfoy underneath. It covers their feet, but the two of them are suddenly much too close, and Harry realizes sharing his cloak with Malfoy feels a lot more uncomfortable than sharing it with Ron or Hermione.

The four of them wind their way through the crowded sidewalks. Hermione's in the lead, glancing nervously back at them every once and awhile. They're not really walking anywhere in particular, but it makes Harry feel better to keep moving. Malfoy's breath is hot on the side of Harry's face, and Malfoy's hand forms a tight fist against his leg. Harry can feel the tension and fear rolling off the blonde in waves, and he lets it calm him down, knowing that he usually does better focusing on someone else's reaction to a situation like this than his own.

It's when a patch of creepy looking men holler across the street at Hermione that she ushers them quickly into a tiny, dingy looking cafe before Ron can yell something back at the guys. Or attack them, judging by the dark red tinge that springs to Ron's face and ears. Beside him, Malfoy flinches at the loud yells but otherwise shows no reaction.

Inside, they slide into a booth. It's incredibly awkward for the two under the cloak, but they shuffle in as quietly as possible as a waitress who's chewing gum and wears headphones around her neck takes Ron and Hermione's order. In order to sit in the cloak, Harry has to rest the side of his leg against Malfoy's, and he's very aware at how warm the pressure is. Something in his stomach twists uncomfortably.

They discuss heading to Grimmauld Place to talk about their "next steps" (as Hermione says, but Harry knows she really just means how to get rid of Malfoy). It seems, despite all the questions on how safe exactly the place is, the most logical option. Malfoy is particularly interested, once he learns it's the Black Estate. Ron rolls his eyes, but Harry finds himself thinking that he rarely sees excitement in Malfoy's eyes, if he ever has.

It works to district Malfoy at least. Which is good, seeing as discussing what the trio should do next is hard to do without mentioning horcruxes. Ron almost slips up once, and is luckily silenced quickly by Harry hard heel on his toes. Malfoy just sends a look at Harry, but at Harry's shrug just goes on to ask how on earth Harry ended up with the black estate. To which Harry responds is none of his business, and Malfoy, spectacularly, sticks his tongue out at Harry but doesn't push the issue.

They're still talking when Harry sees two familiar faces dressed as workman, duck behind the front counter. Malfoy also seems to recognize them and tenses beside him. Harry has his wand out just before Malfoy's whisper comes at his ear: "Death Eaters."

He doesn't waste any time and throws the first spell, which immediately stuns one of the Death Eaters. The other, alarmed by the silent attacker, ducks behind the door frame to the kitchens but throws rapid spells out blindly. The tiny cafe is suddenly lit with flashing lights from spells that ricochet off linoleum tiles and plastic chairs. Ron and Hermione are on their feet in half a second, Hermione casting a shield charm and Ron sending stunner after stunner at the remaining Death Eater, who now crouches behind the counter and is sending spells through the air at them that Harry just dodges.

Malfoy hides himself under the table as the trio fights. Harry's about to yell at him when he remembers the blonde doesn't have a wand. The thought of being wandless himself in a situation like this, Harry realizes, once both Death Eaters are stunned and the place is locked up, sends a fresh wave of panic through him.

It's when Ron asks Harry what he thinks they should do that he makes two quick decisions.

"Wipe their memories," he says firmly, because the thought of doing anything else is unpleasant, and Harry also doesn't want to draw attention to the fact that they were there. He pulls his wand out and starts fixing a broken wooden cabinet. He adds the last thought hastily, like the rash decision it is, "and take one of their wands."

When the two turn to look at him he says nothing, but continues cleaning up. He does tilt his head in a pointed way to Malfoy though, who's trying to slip out from under the table without being noticed, wiping his hand on his jeans. Jeans look weird on Malfoy, Harry thinks, now that he actually looking at the man. But it's not a bad kind of weird, which is even stranger.

Ron and Hermione nod in sudden understanding, but it's Malfoy who surprises Harry by saying:

"Good idea," he says, and there's the normal tightly controlled expression on his face, but a weird mixture of relief and trepidation slips into his voice. "Not Dolohov's, though."

Hermione's eyes are suddenly sympathetic, but Harry doesn't understand. Shaking his head, he tries to refocus.

"Just quickly, please?" He asks, and they clear up and Malfoy takes the wand, holding it in his hands and turning it over, looking unsure.

"Don't try it here," Harry says firmly, and Malfoy doesn't answer him but goes to slip the wand into his pocket. After a moment of hesitation, where it becomes clear that Malfoy has maybe never worn jeans or at least never tried to carry a wand in them, he seems to give up and slips it into his back pocket. The memory of Moody yelling at Harry for doing the same only two years ago, rises in Harry suddenly, like the echoing whisper of a ghost.

"Grimmauld place then?" Ron says, and Harry looks at him. There's a line of sweat below his forehead and he looks a little paler than normal, but determined. Harry nods.

"What about—" Malfoy begins but he's cut off by Harry, who grabs his wrist and disapparates them away, at the same moment he sees Hermione and Ron vanish from in front of him.


	6. Grimmauld Place

A/N: Wow, so he's an update. I can make a bunch of excuses about how I changed jobs, and then was hit by the holidays, etc etc… but I think I'll just keep posting new chapters instead!

Thank you to anyone who's reviewed so far, and anyone willing to come back to this story after the months long delay. I really love hearing your reviews, and it's what makes me inspired to keep writing!

Also, since it's been awhile, here's another disclaimer. I'm not JKR and any similarities in dialogue is me simply borrowing from the original text for sake of the story.

Onward!

–

–

The four of them are in the dark, musty sitting room of Grimmauld Place, carefully watching each other. Hermione's biting her lip and seems to be considering Malfoy carefully, while Ron is glancing back and forth between the two with a bewildered expression. No one seems to want to speak first.

Malfoy, who is paler than normal since entering, having been face to face with the apparition of Dumbledore in Moody's final trap against Snape, is keeping a tightly controlled expression. His arms are folded and he's leaning back against the couch with an air of "couldn't care less" about him. He looks so much like the arrogant boy Harry knew in school that it's almost alarming. If it wasn't for the hard, thin line of Malfoy's mouth, the slight sheen of sweat on his hairline, the small tremble in his right hand– Harry might not have been able to spot the differences at all.

Harry, for his part, feels impatient and on edge. He knows that if he doesn't speak up first, no one will, which seems to be becoming an unfortunate and common trend. His scar is also burning, feeling increasingly like a hot iron if being pressed to his face. It had started as a dull ache when they first arrived, but now is slowly becoming more and more urgent. He knows he won't be able to fight it for much longer, that he's at risk for succumbing to the pain and allowing himself a glimpse into Voldemort's mind. He knows Hermione doesn't approve, but after being so abruptly cornered in the middle of muggle London, Harry can't help but feel that seeing exactly where Voldemort is just that much more important right now.

He fights the urge to rub, annoyed, at his stinging forehead, and opens his mouth to say something. Surprisingly, however, Malfoy beats him to it. The trio's heads all snap to him, Ron looking as surprised as Harry feels.

"I think I know how they found us," he says. His voice is quiet, but steadier than Harry was expecting. He wonders if Malfoy used to practice always sounding aloof and put together, or if it's just something that growing up with lots of money and a cruel father just conditions into you.

"How?" Hermione says, almost instantly.

Malfoy opens his mouth to answer but is cut off by a sudden silver light: a small, weasel shaped patronus that suddenly illuminates the small sitting room. It casts light on the bold and faded deep purple and green florals and patterns that decorate the room.

Harry recognizes the patronus as Mr. Weasley's. Across from Harry, Ron jumps to his feet at the sight. Something cold twists in the pit of Harry's stomach.

" _Family safe, do not reply, we are being watched."_

There's a stretch of silence before anyone says anything, one that feels much longer than it is. Harry sucks a breath in as the knot in his stomach loosens, just slightly. _They're all safe,_ he thinks. He tries to let the knowledge sink in and relax him, but he still feels tense and his forehead is still aching. He wishes he could just sleep.

Ron sits back down, slowly. His face is drawn and paler than normal. Hermione's twisting her hands together in her lap again, looking at Ron as though she wants to reach out and comfort him but isn't sure how.

"Guess you're staying for now, Malfoy," Harry says, and his voice sounds vaguely breathless and it annoys him. He's finding it harder and harder to focus on the conversation with his scar prickling.

Ron and Hermione look over uneasily at Harry's words, but it's clear to him that if The Burrow is being watched, there's no way anyone, let alone a fugitive Death Eater, is going back tonight.

Finally, Hermione seems to arrive at the same conclusion as Harry and nods shortly. Ron seems like he's about to argue but is silenced by the look Hermione shoots him. Harry glances at Malfoy out of the corner of his eye. Malfoy, for his part, looks slightly relieved, although Harry can't possibly figure why he'd want to be stuck in this dusty old house with some of Voldemort's most wanted targets, instead of buried under several layers of protection charms and surrounded by Order members.

His scar gives a particularly painful twinge and he decides he doesn't care much about Malfoy's motives. He just tries keep from wincing and attracting Hermione's attention. Thankfully, she's paying more attention to Malfoy. Her head is turned slightly to the left as she watches him.

"I suppose it might be useful, you staying here," she says. She ignores the confused look Ron sends her. "If you do actually know anything we don't."

There's a clear hint of challenge here and Malfoy nods tightly, his face shifting from aloof to determined, an expression that Harry decides (although he's not sure why he's even _thinking_ about it, as though it matters what Malfoy's face looks like) that he likes this expression much more.

"I know the Dar– that he, he was thinking of jinxing his name. He was working out ways to track anyone who uses his it, through protective enchantments, through anything. He hadn't completely done it, when I had left, but–"

"But Harry had said his name, in that coffee shop," Hermione says, raising a hand to her mouth. The four of them pause for a moment, looking at each other. Harry wants to yell, or hit something, at how something he had done, something so seemingly innocent, nearly got all of them killed. He feels angry at himself, his head is aching, and somewhere deep inside of him, he can feel another anger, one that doesn't belong to Harry, stirring slightly. He knows he must give in to the pain soon. When Hermione and Ron exchange worried glance Harry squeezes his eyes shut, just for a moment, blocking out what now seems to be the too bright light of the lamps Hermione put on. When he opens them, he finds Malfoy watching him carefully. Something about the serious expression behind those grey eyes hurts Harry's head even more.

"Well, I guess I'm not doing that again," he says. Ron snorts darkly and Harry rubs his eyes behind his glasses. He stands up suddenly. "I'm going to use the loo."

He barely makes it. He stops himself from sprinting out of the sitting room, hearing Hermione say behind him as he leaves "well I suppose it makes sense, only The Order really uses his name, don't they…."

And then he's hurrying down the hallway, shutting the bathroom door and falling to the floor. The terrible almost-paisley dark green wallpaper fades out almost instantly, his world becoming dark black and then instead a place Harry has never been, where there's nothing but Voldemort and cold, cruel laughter, and screams of torture. He sees Rowle, the Death Eater they had stolen the wand from in the cafe, in what seems like only minutes earlier, twisting on the floor. Voldemort is speaking out in slow and calm words to the watching Death Eaters that they must only be summoning him when they've caught Harry Potter, not when they are foolish enough to let him slip through their grasp–

Harry's face is pressed into the cold tile when he comes back to himself. He sits up quickly, leaning his back against the bathroom door. He wipes the sweat off his forehead and tries to breath slowly. If Voldemort is punishing Rowle, Harry supposes, then no one knows that they're here. They're safe, for now at least.

Harry is finally able to catch his breath when a knock comes at the door. Harry leaps to his feet, expecting Hermione, but a slow drawl comes through the door and Harry sighs, not sure if he's relieved or not.

"Hermione asked me to bring your toothbrush," he hears through the door. Shaking himself slightly, he opens the door and reaches out his hand to grab it. Malfoy, however, appears to have other ideas, and crosses into the bathroom. He's carrying two toothbrushes and watching Harry carefully. It's unnerving, Harry decides, being the sole focus of those grey eyes.

"Thanks," Harry says slowly. Really, he just wants Malfoy to get out. He's suddenly reminded of the first morning after the blonde came to Privet Drive and the two of them had to brush their teeth next to each other like they were old roommates and not rivals. Not for the first time, Harry wonders if anything will Malfoy will ever feel normal again.

Malfoy just nods, mutters something about him hogging the bathroom, and starts running water over his face. Harry wants to argue that he's being stupid, because Grimmauld Place must have twenty bathrooms and Malfoy could really go fucking anywhere else, but he doesn't have any energy in him to fight. And even so, Harry has to concede that maybe only three of those bathrooms are remotely useable, and he had definitely taken over the best one.

So instead, Harry just joins him, and they brush their teeth in silence. It seems unnervingly normal and Harry almost relishes it, feeling like it's not much different then the nightly tasks he would do with his dormmates each night at Hogwarts.

Malfoy finishes first but doesn't leave, instead continuing to just watch Harry. And just like that, in a way that only Malfoy can do, Harry feels his calmness change quickly into irritation. He doesn't enjoy being stared at, especially not in the bathroom. Harry puts down his toothbrush with a little more force than necessary and runs a hand through his hair. It falls back down to his forehead in thick black waves.

" _What_ ," he says finally, meeting the grey eyes with his own. Malfoy seems to be deciding what to say. The grey eyes flick once to Harry's forehead and it makes his gut twist in annoyance.

"You're connected, aren't you?" Malfoy says finally, and whatever Harry expected, it wasn't that. "You can see into his mind or something. That's how you know what he's doing."

"Very observant," Harry mutters. He runs a hand through his hair again and looks at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. He looks pale, he knows, and there's a faint tint of green in his cheeks that Harry really wishes wasn't there. He takes in a long breath. He can see Malfoy in the mirror behind him, watching carefully.

"You look like you did at the Dursleys," Malfoy adds, and his tone seems unconcerned and unimpressed, but there's something in his eyes that makes Harry uncomfortable. "After you'd wake up from a nightmare."

Harry grips the cold porcelain of the sink in his hands and let's the breath he's been holding out. He talks fast, because he wants to get out of here, and he figures the sooner he satisfies Malfoy's curiosity, the sooner he can escape this much too small bathroom.

"Hermione, she doesn't like it," he begins. His tongue feels heavy, the words seem hard to form. "Not that I like it, it's just– she thinks that I should learn to close my mind, since Dumbledore wanted Snape to teach me–"

"Snape?" Malfoy asks, with a single raised, pale eyebrow. Harry rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, I'm rubbish at it, but I suppose Snape wasn't really trying, was he?" Harry pauses to closes his eyes for a moment, trying to push down some of his anger at Snape, and at Dumbledore, for trusting Snape, for hiding things from Harry, for not telling Harry anything that he needs to know, to know what to do now–

When he opens his eyes, Malfoy is still there, watching.

"He's torturing Rowle," Harry says shortly, figuring this is what Malfoy wants to hear. The blonde flinches at Harry's tone, but doesn't say anything. "Apparently he wasn't too impressed when he answered their summon and found we had escaped."

"Shit," Malfoy mutters. Harry looks down, at his fingertips, which are turning white as he continues to grip the sink tightly.

"I know I should close my mind, but it helps us to know where he is, what he's doing. And if it's going to help, I'm going to keep doing it."

He raises his eyes back up to meet Malfoy's in the mirror, challenging the other boy to call him foolish or insane. Malfoy, though, just stares back at him. He's head is turned slightly to the side, and there's a glint in his eye that on anyone else or in any other moment, Harry would say was a look of being vaguely impressed.

Neither of them says anything for a long moment.

"You know, Potter," Malfoy finally says, and he's uncrossing his arms and coming up closer next to Harry. For a moment, a small but confusing moment that makes Harry's stomach twist, he finds it hard to breath. "You're really nothing like I thought you were."

Harry doesn't know what the fuck to say to that, but he opens his mouth anyway, when a sharp insistent knock comes at the door, followed by the annoyed whine of Ron.

"Come on, you're hogging the only good bathroom!" Ron calls through the door. Harry snaps his mouth shut and rolls his eyes, turning to open the door for Ron. He slips out and goes to settle into one of the sleeping bags Hermione had brought for the three of them, in a spot against the wall where he can see the door, just in case.

* * *

In the morning, many things happen at once. By the early afternoon, Harry somehow has found a note written by his mother, learned who the mysterious R.A.B. is, and managed to send Kreacher off to track down Mundungus Fletcher. Harry's still a little disgusted after hearing Kreacher's story, of the brutality Voldemort would treat a house elf with, although he knows he probably shouldn't be surprised. He wonders if he will ever stop feeling surprised by Voldemort's cruelty, but he tries not to think about it now. He tries to lock it away in the same part of his brain where he's locking the thought that maybe, just maybe, if Sirius had learned the full story of Regulus' betrayal of Voldemort and Kreacher's loyalty to his brother, that maybe everything two years ago might have gone differently.

Malfoy, on the other hand, is still asleep on the couch, wrapped in a thin, slightly moth-eaten blanket. To his credit, Malfoy had glared at the blanket as Hermione had held it out to him last night but didn't otherwise comment. It's probably better for the three of them this way, Harry thinks. If Malfoy is asleep, they don't have to hide their conversations, or worse, try to figure out how to explain any of this to him.

"Still asleep," Ron says with a snort, peering into the sitting room from the kitchen table. The three of them are gathering there now, wanting to talk about plans and next steps, as they wait for Kreacher to return. Hermione shushes him.

"I'm sure he's tired," she says, sending Ron the look she always does, when she's thinking he's being an absolute idiot. "I heard him up early this morning, I think he had morning sickness again."

"Can we not talk about this?" Harry cuts in weakly. It's too early for him to be discussing any of the weird stuff living with Draco Malfoy is proving to be. And he's already starting to feel antsy. He's never been the best at planning, always preferring to be on the move. Hermione just rolls her eyes and mutters something that sounds a lot like "boys".

"What are we telling him, though?" Ron asks, jerking a thumb behind his shoulder in Malfoy's direction, as if it wasn't obvious who he was talking about.

Hermione glances over at Harry. She looks like she wants to say something but is unsure. Harry has no clue what she's thinking.

"As little as possible," he says slowly. Ron nods, looking relieved. Hermione nods as well, but she's biting her lip. "I don't think he'll be surprised, if we're using silencing charms and all that. He knows he wasn't supposed– it wasn't the plan to have him here. And until we can find a safe way to get him back–"

"That's just it though," Hermione says suddenly, "what if we _can't_ get him back. They're going to be watching The Burrow closely, in case you show up there, aren't they? And I don't know where any of the other safe houses are, do you?"

Ron and Harry glance at each other while shaking their heads. Hermione seems to be steeling herself for something. Ron sees it too, and the look he gives Harry is one of trepidation.

"Well, no," Harry says slowly. "But that doesn't mean he needs to know anything."

Hermione twists her hands, which are sitting on top of the table. She bites her lip again, but she doesn't seem like she's working herself into debating this, Harry thinks, thankful. Instead, she looks like she's trying to talk herself out of it.

"Okay. Okay, it's just… just hear me out, okay? What if he could help? I mean, he did live with V–"

"No!" Ron cuts in sharply. Hermione claps a hand to her mouth and her brown eyes are wide with fear.

"I– I'm sorry, I forgot!"

"It's okay," Harry says, and he tries to sound patient with her, because honestly, he's scared of slipping up himself, and because he knows Hermione well enough to know that he hesitate about keeping Malfoy in the dark comes from Hermione's insane ability to always empathize with the underdog. He knows her idealistic sense of justice is just thinking about a pregnant victim of Voldemort, and not thinking about Draco Malfoy. Harry, on the other hand, remembers every moment where Malfoy didn't do the right thing, and he doesn't know if, under the threat of capture or torture, if Malfoy would keep their secrets. It's not a risk he's ready to make.

He's not sure how to say that all out loud, however, especially with Malfoy right in the next room. He's not ready to have that fight with him, and it would be Harry's luck that Malfoy would wake up just in time to hear Harry say it. He settles for a short and determined response.

"I know what you're trying to say, Hermione, I really do. But Dumbledore wanted me to tell you three, that's it. He didn't even share it with Kingsley or Moody, or any other leaders of The Order. It's too important."

Hermione nods at him. She still seems slightly shaken at her near miss but seems to agree with Harry.

"Right," Ron says, nodding as well. "So it's settled."

* * *

The next few days stretch into a week, and Harry is still dreaming about the mysterious man Voldemort is searching for. He wakes early in the morning to find Ron watching him. On the couch, Malfoy is fast asleep. Harry looks around for Hermione, but she's nowhere to be found.

"She's in the bathroom," Ron whispers, and Harry nods. "Did you have another dream?"

Harry sighs and leans up onto his elbow.

"He's looking for someone," he begins, speaking slowly. "Someone named Gregorovitch, I think. Do you know who that could be?"

Ron shakes his head and Harry groans. He rubs his eyes underneath his glasses.

"I know the name from somewhere, I just can't remember– it's something to do with Quidditch…."

"Gorgovitch?" Ron says, his eyebrows raised. "Are you sure you're not thinking of Gorgovitch, a chaser for the Chudley Cannons?"

Harry shakes his head, bewildered.

"No," he says, "No, I'm definitely not thinking of Gorgovitch."

"I try not to either," Ron says seriously. "He holds the record for most quaffle drops in a season, I'm telling you."

Harry laughs softly. Down the hallway, Harry can hear Hermione opening the bathroom door.

"Ron," he says suddenly, "Can you not say anything to Hermione, about this? I just–"

"I get it," Ron says. "She means well, but she–"

"But she what?" Hermione says, appearing suddenly in the doorway. Ron's eyes widen, and he mumbles something about how they weren't talking about her, and Hermione raises her eyebrows and shoots something sarcastic back.

Harry fight the urge to roll his eyes, used to the bickering between the two. He glances over at the couch and is startled to see two grey eyes staring back at him.

"Malfoy!" Hermione says suddenly, breaking off in a mid-insult about Ron's morning hair. "We didn't wake you, did we?"

Malfoy sits up and shakes his head. Harry can't help but notice that Malfoy doesn't have any bad morning hair. In fact, it looks like Malfoy only just laid down. He doesn't know how the blonde prat does it, Harry doesn't even want to think about what his own mess of a hair is doing.

"No, I was already awake," he says, and Hermione smiles at him awkwardly. Harry wonders how much of the conversation between him and Ron Malfoy must have heard. He replays the conversation back quickly in his head, trying to decide if he said anything too important. He doesn't think that they did, but he knows that they need to be more careful.

"I'm going to go make some tea," Hermione says, after a stretch of uncomfortable silence. Malfoy is looking at Harry questionably, and Harry looks away quickly, realizing he must have been staring as he was lost in thought. Mortified, he feels a warm flush rise in his cheeks.

"I'll come with you," Ron says, jumping up. Hermione rolls her eyes and says something about Ron going to brush his teeth instead, and the two quietly bicker as they move around the kitchen. Harry can't make out anything they're saying, probably luckily. He's happy for his friends, he is, but he knows they're just dancing around the inevitable and the constant flirting and tension is slowly driving him up a wall.

If he was being honest with himself, he thinks that the flirting should probably make him miss Ginny more, except that it isn't. In fact, after he found out that she and the rest of the Weasley's were okay after the wedding, he hadn't thought too much about her. He doesn't want to think about what that means.

"Are they always like that?" Malfoy says, cutting into Harry's thoughts.

Harry lets out a short laugh, resigning himself to not think about Ginny, at least not for the near future. It's too strange.

"Unfortunately," he says, tilting his head and he glances over at the kitchen, where he can hear his two best friends moving around.

"The two need to just shag and get it over with." Malfoy sits up, wrapping his arms around his knees. Harry sputters. He's thankful he doesn't have tea yet, or he would have spit it everywhere.

"Gross, please, don't say anything like that ever again. Those are mental images I don't need."

"Oh, I forgot," Malfoy says, and he's smirking. It looks like he woke up as Playful Malfoy, and Harry figures this mood change is better than some of the other ones. "I forgot you prefer to dream of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named then–"

He breaks off at the look Harry shoots him. Speechless, Harry just stares. He's overtaken with the sudden urge to punch Malfoy in the face, but then the other boy pulls a face and shakes his head.

"Shit, I'm sorry. I was just joking– Sorry."

Harry's not ready for the abrupt turnaround. He just keeps staring back at Malfoy, not sure how on earth he got to a place where Draco Malfoy would be trying to tease him. And failing terribly at it, obviously, but Harry thinks that there's some bit of effort there, at least.

"Not your best joke," he says tightly, and Malfoy sighs.

"You and Ron are always teasing each other," he says, and Harry's surprised that he's even noticed. Harry didn't even notice how much he and Ron did joke around, but thinking about it, he suppose they did.

"I dunno," he says, shrugging. "I suppose we've just been friends long enough, we don't even think about it."

Malfoy picks at a loose thread of his blanket and Harry realizes suddenly that Malfoy probably doesn't have a friend like Ron, who could pick on him and much as he could dish back. Harry thinks of Crabbe and Goyle and wonders about the Slytherin House, of Draco Malfoy and his father, and how most things were probably about power and probably not about letting another person tease you, at any rate.

It's probably weird enough that he's trying to analyze Draco Malfoy. Hermione, at least, would probably be impressed, not that he would ever tell her any of this. But he assumes she would be proud of him for thinking something through for once.

Any supposed insights aside, Harry can't think of something, anything, slightly appropriate to say now.

"I could teach you occlumency," Malfoy says finally. Harry's at first thankful for the change of topic, until he processes the offering. So, Malfoy must have been awake for his conversation with Ron, then. He had figured, but didn't count on Malfoy saying it so openly.

"No," he says, his tone short, "it's fine."

Malfoy wrinkles his nose and Harry sighs, realizing that the other boy must have, somehow, woke up today and decided to try and make an effort. Harry, against his better judgement, decides that he should probably try to do the same.

"I told you, I don't mind knowing what he's up to."

Malfoy stares at him for so long that Harry thinks he must have gone deaf. In the kitchen, he can hear clinking of tea cups and the sound of Ron laughing and Hermione giggling. He'd much rather be in there with them and regrets not jumping at the chance earlier.

But then Malfoy's nodding, as though he's finally understood something, and Harry is more confused than ever.

"Like you and the Daily Prophets," he says, and his tone has a ring of satisfaction to it, as though he's solved something. Harry raises an eyebrow at him.

"Like the what?"

Malfoy waves a thin, slender hand at Harry.

"Your newspapers… they're all propaganda, but you said you liked to read them, that said it was better to know."

Harry blinks at him until he finally remembers the conversation. It feels like years ago, not just weeks, that Malfoy was confronting Harry about his habit of rereading old Daily Prophets, of even having them delivered at all. He's not sure what to think about the fact that Malfoy seemed to remember so easily.

"I guess," he says slowly.

Malfoy responses with a pale eyebrow flicking up and a roll of his eyes.

"You act like it's so normal, Potter, but honestly… honestly, I think most people wouldn't want to know. Or don't want to know, actually– Fuck, I lived most of my life not wanting to know." Malfoy pauses, his head tilting to the right, as though he was simply considering Harry.

Harry doesn't know what to say to that. He wants to run and hide in the bathroom. At first, he thinks about how running wouldn't be the brave, Gryffindor-ish thing to do, but then he decides that he doesn't care how it looks.

"I'm going to brush my teeth," he says, mostly to the floor, and he hurries to the bathroom before Malfoy can get another word in.


	7. Three Vows

It takes a few days for Kreacher to find Mundungus, but when he does, it seems to give the three of them more trouble than solutions. As they sit around the table, eating a delicious stew Kreacher made, they talk about Umbridge, breaking into the ministry, and also their mutual and intense dislike of Mundungus. Malfoy is rubbing at his shoulder where Ron had pushed him out of the room at Mundungus' appearance, claiming that " _sure he knows your with The Order we don't really need him knowing you're stuck here with us_ ", which given Mundungus' track record, Harry had to agree with.

The four of them are at the table then. Occasionally, Malfoy rubs again a his shoulder and glares at Ron. It's Buckbeak all over again, Harry feels, and him and Ron sneak eye rolls at each other when the blonde's not looking. Ron even aims a kick at Malfoy's legs under the table, but judging by the terrifying look Hermione shoots him, hits her instead. Ron sits very still after that, looking intently at Hermione as though everything she's saying is incredibly interesting.

Which Harry thinks it is, but doesn't believe that's exactly why Ron is staring.

"It would be mad though," Hermione continues, twirling her soup spoon around in the stew. "And dangerous. We'd have to go to the Ministry often, wouldn't we? Try to gather information, how to blend in. Goodness, even how to _get_ in these days…."

She trails off. Harry shrugs and swallows a large bite of bread.

"It wouldn't be one of our plans if it wasn't dangerous, would it?" he asks, and Ron snorts and Hermione smiles and rolls her eyes. Malfoy, however, stops rubbing his shoulder and looks at them incredulously.

"Wait, you're all joking, right?" They stare back at him. He seems honestly confused, and it's not an expression Harry's used to see on the blonde. Disgust or arrogance, maybe, or even the weird somber expression he's mostly been wearing lately, but not confusion. "You're not seriously thinking of going into the Ministry of Magic— a place surrounded by people who I'm sure would love to have a little _chat_ with Harry Potter— for what? A bloody locket?"

Hermione and Ron turn to look at Harry, as though defaulting to him on what to say. Which Harry has no clue, so he attempts a half-hearted grin and shrugs once more.

"Hermione likes jewelry," which causes Ron to snort again and Hermione to roll her eyes. Malfoy, however, acts as though he didn't even hear Harry.

"Are you all insane? I know this is how you all acted in school, but Dumbledore isn't here to save you now—"

"Don't," Harry says, and any attempt to joke around is wiped out of him as quickly as it came. His gut twists at the mention of Dumbledore, which since his conversation with Muriel at the wedding, is becoming more and more common. The last thing he needs is a lecture about not having Dumbledore around from the man responsible for his death. "I don't want to hear about Dumbledore, not from you."

"Harry," Hermione says slowly. She's twisting her hands and Harry knows what she's going to say before she speaks. It's the same conversation they keep having, over and over, if Malfoy should know what's going on. Harry guesses there are ways to make sure Malfoy doesn't talk, but it feels wrong to tell his former rival and not the rest of The Order, or Ron's parents, or even Ginny.

"Hermione," he says, meeting her eyes and refusing to back down. "We've already decided—"

"I just don't see how keeping him in the dark is going to help us!" She takes a deep breath and straightens to her full height, the I _'m Hermione Granger and my argument is five steps ahead of yours_ air that only Hermione can truly pull off comes out, and Harry almost knows he's lost the argument then and there. "We need to be able to talk freely, otherwise we're wasting our time. And he might know things, right? Maybe he overheard something, or—"

She breaks off, glancing around the group. Malfoy is looking more confused than ever, but Ron is biting his lip and looking like he's about to agree. Frustrated, Harry knows he's outnumbered.

"It just doesn't seem right," he tries, his last argument. "We didn't tell anyone else—"

"It's not about it being fair, Harry. We have to be strategic about it, that's all. That's what he would have wanted." Hermione finishes in one quick breath, and Harry doesn't have to ask who _he_ is.

He closes his eyes slowly and then opens them on Malfoy. To be honest, the idea that Malfoy might know something has been hard to shake out of his mind.

"Alright," he says slowly. Hermione, to her credit, seems to try very hard not to look pleased. He turns his attention to Malfoy and tries to speak with an air of authority he definitely doesn't feel like he possesses. "You said you'd make an Unbreakable Vow, correct?"

As Malfoy nods stiffly, Hermione opens her mouth to speak.

"No," he says, not willing to budge on this one point. "I can't agree without it. It's too important."

There's a moment before both Hermione and Ron are nodding.

"Do you know how to do it?" Ron asks Hermione. She nods slowly and Malfoy, rolls up his sleeve.

"I do," he says.

"We have to word it carefully," Hermione says. "Nothing more than what we strictly need to put in."

"Sure," Harry says. He rolls up his sleeve too, and notices how Malfoy's eyebrows raise into his hairline. "You do it, Hermione."

She seems to swallow hard, and then holds a hand up as though to ask for a moment to think. Harry's seen the gesture enough times to know what it is, and he watches her as she concentrates. Surely she's running through her head for any possible loopholes or dangerously casual remarks, and he's overwhelmingly thankful for her in the moment. Ron stands close to her and watches her carefully as well, and Harry's sure he's thinking the same thing.

"Okay," she says finally, nodding as though she's also trying to convince herself. "I'm ready."

If Malfoy is nervous, he doesn't show it. He kneels down and reaches out his hand. Before Harry lets himself think about how bizarre this whole thing is, he kneels as well. He takes Malfoy's outstretched hand. He's surprised with how soft and cold the blonde's skin is. Blinking, he tries to focus on what Hermione is saying.

She's moved to stand next to them, and has her wand out.

"Just three vows," she says, and then places her wand tip on their joined hands. A thin stream of white light appears around their wrists and Harry fights the sudden urge to rip their hands apart and back out of the whole thing.

Hermione gently clears her throat, and when she speaks, her voice is quiet but doesn't tremble.

"Will you, Draco Malfoy, keep any information concerning the Dark Lord, told to you by Harry, Ron, or I, secret; never sharing anything you've learned without our approval?"

Malfoy takes a breath, before saying so quietly Harry needs to lean in to hear him, "I will."

"Will you share any information you know can help us?"

A breath.

"I will."

"And will you, to the best of your ability, join the cause of The Order and— and work to protect Harry Potter until the Dark Lord's defeat?"

Harry tries not to startle at that add on. He thinks he would prefer himself not to be apart of the vow, but he can understand why Hermione added it in. He can't help but look into Malfoy's eyes. Malfoy is staring back at him, his gray eyes illuminated by the light surrounding their hands. Harry's breath catches in his throat and it all feels way too personal to handle, too much contact with Draco Malfoy, the one person Harry could never really stop paying attention too—

"I will," he says, and Harry feels a warmth wash over him as the light shines brightly for a moment and then subsides. Malfoy drops Harry's hand once it's gone, and he shakes his head slightly, trying to rid himself of the strange feeling the vow left him with, one that he can't really explain. One that he didn't really want to think about, not right now.

"The Dark Lord?" Ron cuts in, his eyebrows so high they seem to touch his red hair.

Hermione shakes her head. "Well I couldn't say his name, could I? Not with the jinx. And I didn't think He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was specific enough…"

"It was smart," Malfoy says, and his voice is a lot louder now than it was. Hermione's cheeks flush slightly pink, the way the always do when she's praised, and she takes a step back next to Ron. Malfoy's familiar drawl is back, and for some reason, Harry finds that comforting. "Now, what's with the bloody locket?"

Harry had almost forgotten about the locket, lost in the strangeness of the Unbreakable Vow and holding hands with someone who, a couple months ago, he would have sworn was actively seeking Harry's demise. As Ron and Hermione look to Harry, he sighs, gestures at the table for them all to sit down, and fiddles with a loose bit of nail on his thumb.

"What do you know about Horcruxes?" Harry dives in.

Malfoy gives him a blank look. Resigning himself to only highlight the most important bits, Harry takes a deep breath in and begins.

—

"Seven?" Malfoy croaks, looking ill. It's the first thing he's said since Harry's started, which is impressive in its own right, but not as impressive as the fact that Malfoy, who's lived with dark magic all his life and is currently a pregnant wizard, could still be surprised and repulsed by anything new.

Harry nods grimly.

"Seven," he repeats.

"The locket…" Malfoy tries, as though he knows the answer but needs to hear it out loud to understand it.

"The locket is one, yes," Hermione cuts it. "It used to belong to Salazar Slytherin, and had ended up here, with Sirius' younger brother—"

"A former Death Eater," Ron cuts in. "Who changed his mind, funnily enough."

Malfoy just blinks.

"And now, now you think the locket is at the Ministry?"

"We're pretty sure it is," Harry says. He leans back in his chair and stares up at the ceiling. It's full of cobwebs and dust. "Umbridge has it, and she's probably wearing it as a way to prove her blood status—"

" _Umbridge_ has it?" Malfoy's tone sounds incredulous, and Harry drags his eyes down to look at him. The blonde has eyebrows raised and his jaw dropped open, in a completely unguarded expression that takes Harry by surprise. "You're going to sneak into the Ministry to steal from Dolores Umbridge— who despises you, by the way— and then what? Carry around a bit of the Dark Lord's soul until you can find a way to destroy it?"

The trio looks at each other for a moment, shrugging.

"Yeah, I suppose so," Harry says.

"Are you all _deranged_?"

Hermione giggles and Ron snorts. Harry meets their eyes and can't help but laughing too, which only causes Malfoy to look more convinced of their insanity.

"Yeah, I suppose so," Harry repeats, and then Ron's truly laughing and so is Hermione, and the three of them lean against the kitchen table and try to calm down and catch their breath, but every time one of them catches the look of horror on Malfoy's face, it seems to start them laughing all over again.

"Bet your happy you came with us," Ron finally chokes out. Hermione wipes a tear out of her eye and Harry finally catches his breath. Crazy it might seem, he thinks, but he feels lighter than before and, somehow, feels more able to overtake the Ministry than he did five minutes ago.

Malfoy just blinks at them, before slowing shaking his head.

"Okay, then," he says finally. "Okay, how can I help?"


	8. Planning

Chapter 8 – Planning

Harry exhales, leaning against a bed frame post in what used to be Sirius' bedroom. He's mostly stayed out of this room, but the sudden appearance of Lupin and the subsequent fight has drawn him into this room tonight. The wooden frame groans under his weight as Harry stretches back. It's late into the evening and his body feels heavy. He can't remember when he's last felt completely well rested.

His lack of sleep lately probably had something to do with his short temper this evening. He knows he should feel guilty for what he said to Lupin, calling him a coward, but he thinks he's too tired to feel truly sorry. Lupin's only just left, and Harry's heart is still pounding in his chest from the argument. He can't believe the nerve of Lupin, coming here to offer to _run away with the four of them_ , or even to take Malfoy somewhere… not to The Burrow, not the Tonks'. There was no plan, not for anything Lupin was saying. Just a plan to ditch his kid.

Harry shouldn't have yelled at him though, he knows that. As his heart settles and his head stops pounding, he knows that. But there was something in his words that irked Harry, and he knew what he said was true even if it was harsh. Parents _shouldn't_ leave their kids, not by choice. What would James have thought? Or even Sirius, who left safety to come to the Ministry to save Harry, not just hide away scared….

Harry looks up to the ceiling, where he spots another muggle poster of a half naked woman stuck just above the bed. He snorts. Sirius wasn't one to hide much of anything.

Logically, Harry knows he's not being fair. It's not the same. Sirius and Lupin and James aren't the same. But Harry doesn't feel like he was wrong. If anything , he hopes his words spur Lupin to go back to Tonks.

And if he was angry at all for Lupin suggesting to whisk Malfoy off to somewhere undetermined, it's just because Malfoy isn't a piece of meat to be passed around.

It's not that he's gotten used to having Malfoy around, he tells himself. It has more to do with Malfoy knowing about the horcruxes now. Malfoy's actually a part of helping them now instead of actively trying to hurt them, that's all. It's a thought that's easier to think in this darkened bedroom, alone.

"Well if I can't be of use to you here," Lupin had started, his eyes darting between each member of the trio. Malfoy stood behind Ron and Hermione on the stairs, and out of the corner of Harry's eyes he could see the blonde's tight grip on bannister. "Perhaps I could relocate Malfoy-"

"Relocate where?"

It took Harry a moment to realize it was Malfoy who spoke. He glanced back at him and sees the tightness in his jaw. His face has looked otherwise neutral, but it was probably the closest Harry's seen him to actually looking nervous about this whole thing. The image of them, much younger, Malfoy's face twisted into terror, walking through the forbidden forest together on detention popped unbidden into Harry's mind.

"I'm not entirely sure," Lupin said. He looked caught off guard. And after everything Lupin had just said about Tonks and his future kid, it gave Harry a weird sense of satisfaction to see his unease. "There are other safe houses."

"You're not sure," Malfoy drawled slowly. It was almost Bully Malfoy but Harry realized now, sitting in Sirius' bedroom, it could just have been Self-Protecting Malfoy instead. They were different, somehow.

The two had just stared at each other, until Lupin started talking again about following the four of them, about staying away from Tonks and the baby. And then, well, everything had escalated from there.

Harry knows he's stewing, and he tries to press down his anger. He focuses on a scuff mark on the wooden floorboards by his toe and bits his lip.

There's a soft knock at the door that interrupts his thoughts.

"Yeah?" he calls, and it's Hermione who sticks her head, a curly brown mane followed closely by Ron. Even in the dim lighting, Harry can see that Ron's ears are red.

Harry sighs and looks up at the picture on the ceiling. In a strange, surreal moment, he wonders what about it Sirius could have liked so much. The thought gives him an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach, and he pushes it to the back of his mind to examine later. Much later, hopefully. When there's no war and no fighting and Harry's still hopefully alive to even worry about such things.

He looks back at Ron and Hermione, who are now standing at the edge of the room near the door, looking apprehensive. There was a time (in this house even) when he was younger, when he would want to yell and fight with them. It used to be easier than finding the right things to say, maybe. But now the thought just made Harry feel tired.

"I don't want to argue," he says, trying his best to sound mature and calm, but his voice strains a little into petulant.

Ron raises his hands in surrender and Hermione twists hers. The door is propped open behind them, and the light from the hallway spills into the darkened room.

"Oh, we don't want to argue either," Hermione says.

"No?" Harry asks, an eyebrow raised.

"We came to apologize, actually." Ron's voice is gruff. "Well, Hermione did actually."

" _Ron_ -"

"Wait, what?" Harry cuts in, surprised. He hadn't expected the two to understand why he snapped at Lupin. Especially Hermione who, even though they were very far away from being thirteen year old students, Harry was sure still thought of Lupin as a professor to be respected.

"I'm sorry I didn't understand, Harry, what you were trying to tell Lupin."

Harry blinks at her.

"I know I shouldn't have said what I did," Harry says slowly. He can feel his cheeks burning. "I was just angry."

"I know," Hermione says. "I guess I'm trying to say that I didn't understand why you were so angry at first, but now I do. You're right. Parents shouldn't leave their kids, not if they don't have to. Like you said."

Ron's nodding firmly behind Hermione and Harry's completely bewildered. Did they suddenly think he about to break down, crying about how hard it is to be a sad lonely orphan?

"Okay," he just says, because he doesn't know what else to say. "It's fine, guys. Really."

Hermione's shoulders relax.

"Okay," she says, but she's still twisting her hands in a similar way to how she does before an exam. "I thought it was, I mean, I thought you knew I understood,. It's just that I thought the whole thing could have been handled better, really- not that it matters, but then Malfoy said-"

"Wait, what?" Harry's completely lost now.

"Malfoy _said_ ," Hermione continues, as if she didn't even hear Harry, "that he thought you were pretty spot on, and if we didn't understand what you were saying, then-"

"Hold on," Harry cuts Hermione off. He's squinting at her like she's grown another head, he knows he is, but he can't help it. She stops rambling and looks at him. "You both came in here to apologize because _Malfoy_ told you to?"

"Not quite-" Hermione starts.

"Hermione's really the one who wanted to say something," Ron chimes in. Harry catches his eye and sees some of incredulity at the weirdness of this conversation he feels reflected in Ron's eyes.

"Ron, please?" Hermione snaps, and Harry can't help but snicker. If anything, the strangeness of this moment has snapped Harry out of his stupor.

"Don't change, Hermione," he says, standing up and walking towards them. He cuffs Ron on the arm and grins. "Fucking Malfoy, he makes everything weird."

"A bit," she says, a small smile growing on her face.

The next morning, Ron is off spying at the Ministry entrance again (Hermione's determined to have them learn as much as they can about how the Ministry runs now, before they go charging off there). Hermione's in the study rereading Beedle the Bard for the eighth time, probably. Malfoy's nowhere to be seen, which leaves Harry alone at the kitchen table, sipping on a cup of too hot tea and staring at an old Daily Prophet Ron found last time he was out. There's nothing useful in it, nothing to tell them what Voldemort or the Order might be up too. This summer, the strategy of the paper seemed to be to deflect Voldemort's activities. But now it seemed as though the Prophet was determined to ignore it all, as though people might simply forget about the war.

Harry rubs at his scar, which is stinging slightly. He almost doesn't notice it, idly turning pages as though he might still find something interested buried in an advert on the seventh page, when it suddenly burns. It's a stabbing pain that's gone almost as quickly as it had come. He waits for the accompanied flash of emotion, but there's nothing, just a vague feeling of restlessness he's been feeling nonstop. It's becoming so constant there are moments when he's not sure if it's him or Voldemort. Not that he would ever say that out loud. He can't even imagine what Hermione would say.

Sighing, he sets the newspaper down and resolves to go wash off his face is the bathroom. He thinks back to Sirius, and how trapped he felt in this house, and is able to empathize.

He's just about to walk past the good bathroom, as the door is shut firmly and Harry can see a light glowing underneath, when he hears a loud gasp followed by a muffled curse.

Harry stops. Feeling awkward, he calls out, "Malfoy?"

There's a long pause, and Harry almost walks away. But just as he goes to shuffle awkwardly away from the door, there's a click of the lock, and a long pale arm wraps around Harry's forearm and tugs him towards the cracked bathroom door.

"Malfoy what the-"

"Shh," Malfoy says, pulling Harry into the bathroom and locking the door behind them. Harry scans the small bathroom quickly, a small part of him expecting some kind of death eater bush or sinister plot, but as he turns back to Malfoy's pale than usual face he feels a little guilty for thinking it.

"Uh, what's going on?" Harry tries again.

Malfoy glances at the door, and then at Harry his eyes are wide.

"Have you lost it, Malfoy?"

"Will you just _shut up_ , Potter?" Malfoy finally snaps. "I'm waiting."

Harry guesses that means he's waiting too. Utterly confused, they stand silently facing each other. Malfoy's biting his lower lip and looking down at the floor, a look of concentration on his face.

Then, finally, Malfoy says _there_ , grabs Harry's arm, and places his hand on his stomach.

Harry recoils. He draws is hand to his chest and rubs at it as though Malfoy has burned him.

"Seriously, what the hell are you-"

"Did you feel it?" Malfoy interrupts. He's oblivious to Harry's discomfort, looking at Harry with a nervous energy.

"Feel it?" Harry repeats fully, and it takes half a minute more of Malfoy staring at him until he gets it. "Oh, _it._ Like moving, or something?"

Harry feels nauseous, more so than earlier when his scar was hurting. Or maybe it's a mixture of both. He needs to sit down.

Instead he just blinks as Malfoy nods at him.

"It's kicking, or something."

"Should it be doing that?"

Malfoy gives Harry one of his normal _you're the stupidest person alive_ looks, but Harry thinks it's a fair question. How the hell was he supposed to know how any of this worked, anyway?

"I just mean," Harry tried to clarify, "you're barely… like you haven't really gotten, you know, _bigger_ or anything-"

"Oh, real charming Potter-"

"-I just mean," Harry says, louder, "that it seems too early. Right?"

"It can start moving after eight weeks," Malfoy says, and Harry almost questions how he knows that. He half wonders if Hermione found a book in the Black library and slipped it to the blonde. Harry wouldn't put it past her. "And well, unlike a woman, I guess there's not a ton of space for this thing to live. Less cushioning."

"Less cushioning?" Harry says, and he thinks his head might completely explode.

"That was Hermione's idea, I think," Malfoy says. He looked defensive, but all Harry wants to do is put his head through a wall. He'd rather go back to reading the Prophet at the table and feeling like his head might split open than stay in this conversation.

He rubs at his eyes under his glasses. When he opens them, however, Malfoy's pulling up the hem of his shirt. And unlike the round swell of stomach that Harry might have expected, there's just a small bulge under Malfoy's navel.

Harry stops himself from saying he might be sick just in time. He sucks a breath in and tries not to be insensitive. But seriously.

"There," Malfoy says, his voice quiet again. "It's happening again."

Harry looks into Malfoy's gray eyes and sees something there he can't place. There's fear, and some of Harry's own disgust reflected back at him. But also something else, something oddly similar to hope.

He finds himself unable to look away, and as Malfoy grabs his arm again and guides his hand to that weird lump, he lets him. Afraid to blink, he looks down at his hand.

Malfoy's skin is warm and soft to the touch. He didn't know what he expected it to feel like, but it wasn't that.

And then, just in the briefest of moments, there's a twinge beneath his hand and it's completely bizarre.

"Shit," Harry says, but he doesn't pull away yet. Malfoy laughs, sounding a little out of breath.

"This is crazy," he says. Harry can't help but again.

"That's an understatement."

Malfoy drops the hem of his shirt and it covers Harry's hand for just a moment, before Harry gets the cue and moves it. But there's this odd moment where his hand's up Malfoy's shirt and something stirs in Harry's chest. It's so quick and then it's gone, and Harry shoves the feeling to the back of his mind, where it belongs.

"I kind of hoped the throwing up and everything, that it was just a trick," Malfoy said. "But it's not, is it?"

Harry's staring at his own hand. It seemed somehow that it should look different now, after having been so close to something so strange.

"No, it's not," he replies after a moment. He looks back up at Malfoy, who's now biting his bottom lip in a way Harry's never seen him do before. The action draws his eyes right to Malfoy's lips, and when he drags them back up to meet Malfoy's gray ones, there's a flick of the right eyebrow and slight smirk on Malfoy's mouth.

Harry's overtaken by the sudden feeling that Malfoy can see right through him. He feels thirteen again. Clearing his throat loudly, he gestures at the door.

"Well, I should probably go see what Hermione's doing." He hopes he comes across as nonchalant, calm. Not weirded out, not… whatever else that raised eyebrow was trying to say.

"Sure," Malfoy says, almost a whisper. There's something in the way Malfoy breathes the word that tells Harry he's not buying his calm indifference. He grabs at the door handle and escapes into the hallway.

In the open air, Harry finds he can collect his thoughts.

 _It was just being in that little room._ Harry thinks to himself, as he walks (definitely not fleeing) towards the library. _He's the one who put my hand on his stomach, for Merlin's sake._

He's not completely sure who he's arguing with, but the thoughts don't leave his head until he's safely tucked into a large black armchair next to Hermione, far away from wherever Malfoy has disappeared to. She rambles on about something she's found out and he half listens.

"Oh," she says suddenly, jolting Harry out of his thoughts. "How's Malfoy doing today? Is he not feeling well?"

"What? No. I mean, no, he's fine." Harry fights the urge to groan. Couldn't act normal for

even a couple of minutes? What was wrong with him?

"Okay," Hermione says slowly. He can feel her eyes on him, but she doesn't say anything else.


	9. Another Bathroom Talk

Chapter 9

A/N: Hello lovelies. Thanks for all your wonderful reviews, they truly make my day!

Just a note — I wrote this most of this chapter while it was thunderstorming, which I think may have contributed a bit to the dark tone. This is a heavy chapter that I thought might come a bit later, but here it is now. TW for discussions of sexual assault and general post traumatic events discussions. They're not very graphic, but's definitely there. I've tried to handle them as gently as possible.

I really am terrible at chapter titles so I think I might just lean into it. Enjoy!

Harry wakes up with his heart racing. Whatever his dream was, it quickly escapes him, leaving him feeling hollow and strange. He vaguely remembers green light and a baby crying, but instead of it being him, it was Malfoy, Maybe. He tries to focus on the details, but as he wakes completely, the ceiling above him comes into focus and the dream slips away.

Ron is snoring, tucked next to the couch where Hermione's sleeping. She's rolled toward where he's laying on the floor and her fingertips hang off the couch to graze his hips. It looks oddly intimate and Harry glances away quickly.

He looks to the other couch behind him, where Malfoy should be. It's empty though, the blanket folded carefully back. It didn't look like Malfoy ran out of bed in a hurry. Harry figures it's none of his business and closes his eyes again and tries to fall back asleep. They're planning on heading to the Ministry tomorrow because Harry can't handle waiting any longer. He knows he needs to rest for it, but the anticipation is eating at him. It's probably what led to his dream, now that he thinks of it. All night long, the three of them had been on edge, going over and over all the details they knew as if that the right preparation alone was all they needed to succeed.

Malfoy seemed antsy too. He kept looking at the three of them discussing plans like he was waiting for the right moment to talk them out of it, but it never came.

He focuses on the consistency of Ron's snores and pretends he's back at Hogwarts, where everything is as safe and normal as it could be. Back when they weren't in danger, or caring for a rogue death eater, and there's no such thing as a pregnant man. He wills himself to believe it.

He has to give up after about five minutes, because even his tired brain can't be tricked into believing it. All he can think about is Malfoy and where he might have disappeared to. The moment a few days ago, where he felt the tiny version of Malfoy _move_ , had his hand up the blonde's shirt like it was completely normal. He squirms under his blankets. He's not sure when he stopped feeling entirely freaked out by the whole pregnant Malfoy thing and started feeling… well, feeling something else.

He refuses to give any thought to the growing bulge in his sleep pants. Pushing himself up, he tells himself it's only because he just woke up, and only because there's a supreme lack of private moments to take care of things like this with all four of them in this house. It has nothing to do with Malfoy.

He doesn't fold his blanket nicely like Malfoy did, thinking he'll just disappear to the bathroom for a moment. Pushing all thoughts of Malfoy out of his mind, he tries to think of nothing. Honestly, there was nothing better than a quick wank when he was feeling tense, and he was always feeling tense nowadays. He wants to let it erase his mind, if just for a moment.

He's ready to skip the nice bathroom. It doesn't feel like the right place to have a moment to himself. And also because he figures that's where Malfoy will be. He turns down the other hallway and goes to the second best bathroom. It pretty clean and free of any weird creatures, but there's this permanent musty smell that no one can seem to get rid of. He pads quietly in his socks down the hallway, walking softly to make sure he doesn't startle Ron and Hermione, or even Kreacher, who has lectured Harry multiple times about sneaking into the kitchen for a cup of tea when he can't sleep.

It's strange having Kreacher suddenly care about them. He'd been cooking them food and washing their clothes, and telling them off when they stayed up too late around the table with drawings of the ministry and pages of Hermione's notes scattered around them. Overall, Harry figures that it's nice, but it's taken some getting used to.

However, Harry figures it's one thing for Kreacher to catch him drinking tea in the middle of the night and another thing altogether to catch Harry doing, well doing what he was about to do.

He gets to the bathroom and pushes open the door, only to find Malfoy sitting on the floor, leaning against the bathtub next to the toilet. He seems to be fast asleep, his mouth open slightly and leaning a strange way that Harry can't imagine is comfortable. There's a hand over his stomach, almost in a protective way.

Harry manages not to shout out in surprise, just barely. Instead, he curses under his breath. What was Malfoy doing in this bathroom? All he ever did was complain about the smell. He'd always go to the best bathroom, even if he had to wait. But now he was here, just when Harry was _not going to think about him_ and just have a quiet nice moment to himself. He fights the urge to groan in frustration.

Harry hesitates for a moment, trying to decide where to go now. His sleepiness is beginning to wear away, and the reckless abandon he felt in sneaking somewhere in the middle of the night to jerk off in peace is leaving him. He rubs at his eyes and goes to leave, when Malfoy slides down the tub a little, jolting him awake. His gray eyes blink, looking around confused for a moment before focusing on Harry.

"Potter," he drawls, but his voice is thick with sleep, making it deeper and huskier in a way that makes Harry's stomach drop. He's suddenly aware there's something here that maybe he can't keep ignoring. The bathroom is too small and he's getting very sick of being trapped in small spaces like this with Draco Malfoy.

"We need to stop meeting like this," Harry jokes weakly, turning around and gesturing at the bathroom like this is a normal conversation. But nothing about him and Malfoy has ever been normal, has it?

"Why are you here?" Malfoy just says, and there's a flicker of irritation in Harry's stomach that replaces the odd feeling.

"Why are _you_ here?" he asks, "you hate this bathroom."

Malfoy just shrugs and stretches. His shirt raises slightly and there's a band of pale skin around Malfoy's stomach that Harry's eyes jump to. His fingers tingle as they remember what that band of skin felt like to touch. He looks calm and indifferent, not like Harry just caught him sleeping in a gross bathroom like it's totally normal. It's such a Malfoy-like reaction and it drives Harry nuts.

"I didn't want to take up the nice one," he says finally, after Harry stares at him long enough the blonde must have figured Harry wasn't going anywhere until he got his answer.

"We were all asleep," Harry presses. He doesn't know why he does, but he guesses that he's never been able to let anything go when it comes to Malfoy.

Malfoy clicks his tongue and rearranges himself so he's leaning straight back against the tub. He runs a hand through his hair and pushes his blonde hair back. He looks effortlessly cool and Harry can't decide if what he wants to do is strangle him, or if it's something else.

"I felt sick," Malfoy says, "I figured the weird smell would probably help move things along."

He crinkles his nose as he says it and Harry figures he's telling the truth.

"Right," Harry says. His hands hang awkwardly by his side, and he wants to know how Malfoy always manages to make him feel out of place. He almost misses the times where Malfoy would just make him feel angry instead. Almost.

"Well," Malfoy adds, "what are you doing here?"

Harry blinks. He tries to think of a believable lie. He settles for a half-truth.

"I had to use the bathroom." Obviously. "I figured you were using the other one already."

Malfoy nods and looks away. Neither of them moves for a moment, and Harry's starting to feel like meeting in bathrooms might just end up being a thing between them. He looks around the room at the faded gold wallpaper and figures it must have been a beautiful bathroom back in it's prime. He pictures fancy floral arrangements and a nice big mirror. He wonders randomly what Sirius thought the best bathroom was.

"Remember at the Dursleys?" Malfoy asks suddenly. Harry's eyes snap back to his gray ones. "When you asked if it's better to talk about the difficult things?"

"Yes," Harry says slowly. He remembers most of his conversations with Malfoy this summer, because they've all been jarring and strange. He doesn't think he'll forget about them anytime soon.

His heart seems to flutter in his chest, but he's not sure why. It makes him feel anxious.

"I still think it's true," Malfoy mutters, and then he looks at the bathroom floor tile below him and begins tracing it with one finger.

Harry stares at him. He's not great at subtly, at picking things up. Whatever Malfoy is hinting at, Harry's not getting it. He can feel his face twisting in confusion, but something about the way Malfoy is not looking at him and the way his heart is beating in his chest is telling Harry that whatever he chooses to say next is important.

"You want to share something?" Harry tries. The pale hand tracing the tile pattern stops. Malfoy doesn't look up.

"Maybe," is all he says and Harry fights the urge to sigh. He doesn't have the patience for all this vagueness and riddles. It sometimes feels like everything with Malfoy is buried in a layer of subtext.

All he wanted was a nice quiet wank, and then to fall back asleep and hopefully not dream, just for a few hours.

He's half tempted to run away, find a different bathroom and do the deed and then run back to sleep. But instead, Harry finds himself sitting down, leaning his back against the bathroom door and watching Malfoy carefully. There's a strand of blonde hair that hangs past Malfoy's eyes, which are still firming glued to the ground. He waits, wondering if Chatty Malfoy is hiding there somewhere, waiting for a cue to come out.

For a long moment, the only sounds are their breaths, which sound oddly loud in the small room. The musty smell is starting to go away, or maybe Harry's just getting used to it. One of the few candles Malfoy had lit goes out, casting a long shadow in the far corner that climbs up the wall to the ceiling.

Impatient, Harry breaks first.

"Well?" he asks. Malfoy bites his bottom lip, which Harry's noticed is what he

does before he launches into rambling.

"I had a dream," he begins. "It's that, the dream, that made me feel ill. Not ill like, well… not from this."

Malfoy presses his hand to his stomach once more, then lets it fall back down to his side. Harry just watches him, saying nothing.

"It was so vivid, I just — Do you ever have dreams like that? You must, I'd guess. You've had tons of bad things happen to you."

Malfoy looks right Harry's eyes as though he didn't just say something completely rude. But, as he thinks about it, maybe it would have been rude for Ron or Hermione or someone else to say something like that, but coming from Malfoy it didn't feel strange. It feels just like Malfoy.

"Like a memory?" Harry says, because all at once he understands what Malfoy is saying. Malfoy nods so adamantly that somewhere in Harry's chest aches. He finds himself wishing that Malfoy had someone, really anyone but Harry, who had no desire or ability to deal with stuff like this, to talk this through with.

But he can't bring himself to blow Malfoy off. He realizes this is quickly becoming the theme of his summer. But he also remembers the summer after Cedric died, and the night after night he had nightmares. He would wake alone, with no one but the Dursely's nearby. How he would wake cold with sweat and stare at the ceiling until the sun rose, shaking.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," Harry says.

"What are they like?"

Harry was wrong, this wasn't Chatty Malfoy, it was a different mood entirely. One Harry had never seen, not like this. It was almost Challenging Malfoy, the kid who'd goad Harry in the school hallways into saying things he didn't mean, or did mean but knew he shouldn't say. Everything about the raised eyebrow and the glint in Malfoy's eyes was startling familiar, but at the same time totally unnerving.

"They were like whatever memory, I suppose," Harry begins. He takes a deep breath before continuing. "They felt real, but also not real enough. Like I was watching my life from someone else's point of view. I guess I felt detached from it all."

"Like when?" Malfoy presses, and Harry notices that he's leaning forward towards Harry, his knuckles clenching his knees. Harry wishes for a moment that he had less Gryffindor bravery and more of the intelligence needed to have run away when he had the chance.

But he knows he's been running away from Malfoy each time it's gotten weird, whenever they've ended up alone together in Grimmauld Place. He wonders if this is the conversation he'd been avoiding, if somehow he knew they were working towards something like this. Not that he knows what _this_ is, exactly.

"Like —" he tries to decide what the least personal moment is, but all he can think about is Cedric. He figures he's missed the moment to be private and decides to commit to this, weirdness and all. He's not entirely sure when was the moment he stopped viewing Malfoy as a stranger and started viewing him as, well if not a friend, then something else. Something maybe similar. "Like after V — _He_ returned."

"You came back clutching Cedric's dead body," Malfoy said. He sounds breathless, like he'd been waiting all these years to say something. "I thought for a moment you'd killed him."

Harry laughs. It was a completely inappropriate thing to say, or even to laugh to, but no one else could hear this conversation. It didn't matter what Harry said, not to anyone but Malfoy, who was still watching him intently, waiting for him to speak.

"I think most of the school did," Harry says, "but I wasn't thinking about that. All I could think about was that He was back, and then about Cedric's parents. I thought they would blame me."

Malfoy's eyebrows shot up.

"Why would they?" he asks, but Harry ignores him. He picks at a loose thread on the bottom of his pant leg. He hears Malfoy sigh and then try a different question. "What did he do to you?"

Harry looked back up at Malfoy, eyes narrowed. Despite everything, he can't completely shake the feeling that Malfoy's trying to get one up on him somehow. But the other boy's eyes hold nothing but curiosity and something else Harry can't name. Something that looks suspiciously close to pity. He looks away again, squinting at what appears to be a patch of mildew on the far wall, but could also just be a shadow.

"He bound me, and took my blood. He needed it to return." Harry says, tonelessly. He's told this story enough times to detach from it. But he can't watch Malfoy's reaction as he talks, so he stubbornly keeps looking at the wall. "And then he wanted to duel."

" _Duel_?"

Harry shrugs.

"I think he just wanted to prove he was better than me," he says. "Which of course he was, I didn't know anything. But I didn't want to just hide there, I couldn't. So I faced him and then something weird happened with our wands, they connected somehow. They share a core or something. I'm not sure."

He realizes he's rambling, and not even rambling in a completely truthful way, but presses on. He doesn't need to get into the history of the connection between his and Voldemort's wands.

"It distracted him long enough that I could grab Cedric and the portkey back," he continued. "But I guess I always dreamt, later, about Cedric dying. He died so quickly. It wasn't even ten seconds after we arrived. I could never wrap my head around how he died so quickly but I had so long to try and survive."

Harry sighs and leans his head back against the door. He closes his eyes and realizes how tired he is.

"There's probably no reason," Malfoy says, after a long moment of silence. "Nothing but luck, I would guess."

There's something close to relief that floods through Harry. Malfoy is matter of fact and critical at times but his words are so much more to Harry than every _it's because you're Harry Potter_ or _don't worry, it's wasn't your fault_ that he's ever heard.

"Luck," Harry just echoes, with a twisted laugh that's almost just a sigh. "Probably."

He finally looks at Malfoy, but the other boy is mimicking Harry's posture, leaning back with closed eyes. Harry wonders if it's easier this way, for both of them.

"So," Harry says finally, figuring if Malfoy gets to be so bold he should get to as well. "It's your turn, I think."

There's a kick to Harry's foot, which is extended out in front of him. His eyes fly open, but Malfoy doesn't even look like he's moved. There's a small smirk on his face, though it seems out of place with the stiffness everywhere else on his body.

"Fair enough," he mutters, so quietly Harry can barely hear him. For the first time since the first night Malfoy came to him, Harry's filled with a sense of foreboding that he's not quite ready to hear what Malfoy will say. Ready or not, though, Malfoy sucks in a breath and then launches into it.

"I dream that I'm back to that night. But it's not about the potion, or about Snape, or about leaving my mother behind. It's about… you know what it's about, Potter."

Harry opens his mouth as if he's going to defend himself. Because he's not the one who started this conversation. But he thinks better of it almost immediately and clamps his jaw shut tight.

There's a long pause, and then —

"I dream that I can't breathe. That everyone is pressed against me and I feel like I'm suffocating. And then I dream that —"

Dread fills Harry's stomach and he knows that he can't even begin to imagine. He thinks he'd rather have a million graveyard scenes replayed in his head than this. Harry gives Malfoy a moment that stretches into what must be several minutes, but when he still doesn't say anything, Harry taps his foot against Malfoy's.

"Dream what?"

"Nevermind," Malfoy says quickly. Harry opens his eyes to see Malfoy looking around, an air of put-togetherness about him that Harry knows must be an act.

It almost looks like Malfoy's about to stand up, but if there's anything Harry can do better than anyone else, it's goading Malfoy. There's a small voice in the back of Harry's head that tells him that's probably why Malfoy's talking to him in the first place, because he knows Harry won't back down. It's not like either of them have ever backed down with the other before.

"You can tell me," he says, with an air of patience he didn't know he possessed. Malfoy still doesn't say anything, but he pauses with a hand on the tub, not quite pushing himself up to standing yet.

Harry tries a different route. It's the one that Malfoy used on him that worked, just complete bluntness. "Come on, I'm pretty sure you've already told me the worst. I don't think you'll surprise me at this point."

Malfoy jolts and meets Harry's eyes.

"I might," he says and his voice suddenly sounds hoarse. "I think — I dream about Hogwarts, how I felt about that kind of thing before, and… you know, I've never told anyone this. I don't think I need to."

"Malfoy," Harry says, because he's very confused. Malfoy stands up quickly and Harry jumps up. They're roughly the same height, and Harry steps close to Malfoy. He puts a hand on the other boy's shoulder to stop him from leaving. Something inside Harry is telling him he can't leave things here, and he listens to it.

"Just, just _let go_ , Potter," Malfoy says, trying to shrug Harry off. Harry holds on tighter, not trying to bruise him but not letting him slip away that easily either.

"You were the one who brought this up, Malfoy," Harry says. The blonde just twists his head and Harry resists the urge to shake him. " _Draco._ Just say it."

For some reason, that gets Malfoy to look at him. He wonders very suddenly when the last time Malfoy probably heard his name was, and realizes it probably hasn't been all summer.

"Draco," Harry says again, and if he likes the way the name sounds on his tongue, he tells himself it's irrelevant.

When Malfoy finally says it, it comes out so fast that Harry has to lean forward to catch it.

"Sometimes I dream that they didn't pick me to get revenge on my father, but because they could tell something else about me. Even though I don't know it for sure. I mean, I'd thought about it, but…" He trails off, and even though Harry's normally terrible at subtext and likes things spelled out for him, he's reminded of every time this summer, and honestly, every time before this summer, when he's had a thought he's pushed to the back of his mind. Telling himself that he'll examine it later, when there's time. Like how he looked a little too long at Oliver Wood after Quidditch practice once, in the showers. Like sixth year, when Ron rolled his eyes at Harry following Malfoy all the time and asked him why he was so obsessed with Malfoy. Like just the other night, when he felt the skin of Malfoy's stomach and it didn't feel the same as when he touched Ginny's skin.

Harry leans back a little and doesn't say anything. For once he's figured out what Malfoy's trying to say, but he doesn't know how to respond. He tries anyway.

"You think that has anything to do with it?" His voice is just a whisper, but Malfoy's eyes snap to him. "Whatever thoughts you've had, it had nothing to do with it. You were tortured, Malfoy. It's not the same."

Harry doesn't know how he knows this, but it feels true. There was nothing at all sexual about what happened to Malfoy. Nothing other than pain and discomfort and humiliation, Harry's sure. He doesn't really know anything about the subject, but he knows Voldemort. There's nothing but power, Voldemort had said to Harry once. That's all torture was about, wasn't it? There's a small voice in his head that tells him he's on the right track, one that sounds a little like Hermione. Harry wishes suddenly that she was the one here right now, instead of him. She'd do a lot better at this conversation.

"It's not?" Malfoy echoes, and Harry's never seen him look so open, with no usual Malfoy mask in place. He looks like a single word from Harry could snap him. It's alarming. Later, when Harry looks back on this conversation, he'll tell himself it was the look in Malfoy's eyes that led him to be so honest with his next words.

"I've been confused too, sometimes," he says, and he half hopes Malfoy won't get it, but his eyes widen almost comically and Harry knows he understands. "And I don't know what all went down that night, but I've also met Vo —"

"No!" Malfoy says quickly, pressing a hand to Harry's mouth. Harry closes his eyes for a moment, cursing himself for the almost slip. He licks his lips where Malfoy's hand had just been. He's not sure if he imagines Malfoy's eyes following the moment or not.

"Sorry, _He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_. Him. I've met him, and he hasn't hesitated to hurt me either, or anyone else who happens to be in his way. It has nothing to do with anything other than him being a complete evil asshole."

"It's different for you," Malfoy says, but he looks less conflicted and Harry takes that as a success. Harry just shrugs, feeling all the sudden very, extremely tired.

"Maybe," he says. "But maybe not."

There seems to be nothing left to say. They fall into silence and Harry feels as though he could close his eyes and fall asleep standing there. The adrenaline from this conversation is leaving his body, leaving him feeling nothing but exhaustion. It's almost funny to think that just twenty minutes ago, Harry was trying to sneak a wank in the bathroom. He wants to curl up under his blankets and sleep the rest of this night off.

"Come on," he says to Malfoy. He wants to tell Malfoy it'll all feel better in the morning, because that's a thing people normally say. Harry's usually found it to be somewhat true, but he knows it might sound a bit dismissive to say right now.

It looks like Malfoy's about to refuse to follow him, but then he nods slowly. They slip into the hallway and back into their beds, and Harry's just almost fallen asleep when there's a whisper that cuts through the darkness to him.

"Thank you, Harry."

He really shouldn't smile, not after everything that was said tonight, but somehow that's how he falls asleep.


End file.
